It Stinks
Times are rotten for refineries.
Reporting and commentary on Texas businesses and the trends and innovation happening in our state
Times are rotten for refineries.
Once an oil-field service boomtown, Alice doesn’t live well anymore.
Despite all the mewling from the oil patch, there are still ways to make money at $15 a barrel. Here’s our guide to surviving the terrible teens.
As the president of Texas’ largest private grocery chain, Charles Butt learned that in order to be nice to his customers he had to be tough on his competitors. And vice versa.
Megadeveloper Trammel Crow bought farmland in Louisiana, but can his company’s big-city savvy make it pay?
Texas developers are snapping up land, putting together deals, and building like crazy—in Washington, D.C.
When newspaper entrepreneur William Dean Singleton bought the ailing ‘Dallas Times Herald,’ people thought he was crazy. When he bought the ‘Houston Post,’ they were sure of it.
Houston discount whiz Elias Zinn sees nothing nutty in his big-bucks bid to take over raving high-tech retailer Crazy Eddie.
Las Colinas was supposed to be Can-Do City. So why couldn’t it?
We have seen the future of Dallas nightlife, and it is called Dallas Alley.
For 68 years, Rosengren’s Books in San Antonio gave personal service, sought out both arcane and popular titles, and fostered a love of reading. It wasn’t enough to keep the store in business.
For some entrepreneurs, the dark cloud of AIDS has proved to have a silver lining
Maybe as much as $20,000, if Lee Ballard of Dallas has anything to do with it.
My father’s Panhandle grape patch gives him a new cash crop and a new pride as a farmer.
At first he couldn’t stand the strain of trying to get rich. Then he couldn’t stand the strain of being rich.
The death of an oil well keeps an oil-field service company alive.
In his dream to create a dynastic empire along the Rio Grande, Chito Longoria went against the wishes of his family and the values of his native land.
Texans are always looking for a new frontier, a place where business people can do business without worrying about a lot of bureaucrats. Want to make it in Texas today? Come to Belize.
At a time when Texas seems to have lost its gift for creating fortunes, there has emerged a group of entrepreneurs who are making money by catering to the needs of people who are going broke.
The departure of MCC’s chief signals a new beginning for the company—and an end to Austin’s high-tech boom.
A new class of self-styled experts called prosperity consultants say they have the solution to Texas’ economic bust: the bad times are all in our heads.
Let’s hear it for Dallas’ Northwood Institute, where entrepreneurialism is second only to high society fundraising.
Their business may read like a sci-fi script, but these aging astronauts, former Nasa engineers, technocrats, and high-risk junkies are serious about selling space.
North Texas bands face a tough choice: living to make music or making music for a living.
So long, OPEC. So long, $27 oil. The Merc is king now.
The continuing saga of the Hermann estate scandal was a shocking lesson in how Houston’s most-respected philanthropists, civic leaders, and biggest deal makers had abused their power.
From the heights of the Dallas social heap, they leaped to the national celebrity circuit. Rich, young, and fashionable, Twinkle and Bradley Bayoud are a case study in how to rise to the top.
The Hermann estate scandal exposed Houston’s most powerful deal makers, most respected philanthropist, and leading lawvers to the harsh glare of publicity. It was a shocking lesson in the abuses of power.
Robert Sakowitz set out to be a retail Renaissance man. Like his hero Leonardo da Vinci, he was going to do everything. And he did—including something he never imagined: fail.
People who have watched a certain prime-time soap opera think they know what goes on at the Petroleum Club. They don’t.
The real Texas technology picture is much more intricate than either the mad hype of two years ago or the dire headlines of today make it out to be.
It seems practically impossible to choose the best deal from the multitude of services offered by all the new long distance phone companies. But we’ve got their number.
A new recruit to the ranks of Mary Kay beauty consultants struggles valiantly to do his part in reaching the woman of the eighties and keeping the company in the pink.
An old hand at Pickens-watching reveals the key to the Amarillo oilman’s corporate-takeover antics.
The great Texas ranches and how they got that way.
“When the cowboys on the 06 ranch talked about losing a way of life, they often pointed to their neighbor, Clayton Williams, as an example of what they meant. He was a millionaire and an oilman, and he represented everything they hated.”
Rich old ladies who hoard their securities set the best example for managing your stocks.
When Houston’s rich and powerful join forces with environmentalists to battle big corporations, they can be fighting over only one thing. Garbage.
So you think that OPEC controls the price of oil and that the glut is hurting everybody in the oil business? Wrong. Traders on the international spot market are pulling the strings and getting rich in the process.
There are a hundred of them, and their job is invisibility. They come into giant office buildings after everyone has gone home and, if they do the job right, make the evidence of the day’s work disappear.
Roger Staubach finds happiness by swapping Rolaids for real estate.
With the help of a friendly banker and some friendlier politicians, Clinton Manges conquered might Mobil Oil and saved his empire. But not for long—it’s in jeopardy again.
Clinton Manges built his empire on brushland and oil wells, political contributions and lawsuits. His influence extends to the state capitol and oil company boardrooms. To get where he is, he studied under three masters of South Texas.
Bearing Gallic sophistication and outrageously delicious desserts, the Lenôtre family has taken Dallas and Houston by storm.
Gary Bradley, a hot young land speculator in Austin, was in the middle of a $50 million deal when he ran into an outraged environmental movement and a lobbyist with some powerful clients. The fight was on.
With the Republican convention only three months away, Dallas’ sales forces are frantically gearing up for a merchandising bonanza.
See the future on your computer: software on stocks, football, and astrology.
Hundreds of new computer companies have made Texas the likely successor to California’s Silicon Valley, and it all started with two firms in Dallas.
When Bames-Connally Investments announced plans to build apartments in a South Austin neighborhood, the residents banded together to try to stop them. They won the battle but lost the war.
They are the quirky enterprises that offer two things under one roof—like shrimp and guns, steaks and loans, or eggrolls and gasoline.