Ralph Frank Lowe: Pioneer of the West Texas Oil Industry (1902–1965)

Ralph Frank Lowe, independent West Texas oil producer and operator, rancher, and sportsman, was born on July 31, 1902, in Ewing (some sources say Durham) in Lewis County, Missouri, to Frank Jerome Lowe, a farmer, and Georgia (Kerrick) Lowe. He was the oldest of four children and grew up in Lewis County. The 1920 census recorded him as a student at a military academy. He attended Westminster College at Fulton, Missouri, and worked briefly for a hotel in Casper, Wyoming, before joining Oil Well Supply and learning the oil business in Kansas and Oklahoma.

About 1928 Lowe moved to West Texas during the first Permian Basin oil boom, where he worked as a machinist for Iverson Tool Company and Shell Oil before he became a shop foreman and successfully operated a service station in Wink, Texas, where he was listed on the 1930 census. In 1932 he moved to Midland, where he operated another service station, Lowe’s Service Station, a Texas Company (Texaco) consignment company on the corner of Wall and Colorado streets. He soon expanded his service station to include being a Goodyear dealer and became involved in local philanthropy as a member of the Lions Club. He was involved in various city promotions. This included his bet to encourage business when local Troop 54 of the Boy Scouts brought “Iron Man,” promoted as the “World’s Famous Dare-Devil & Strong Man,” to Midland. Lowe wagered that the strongman, with a rope tied around his stomach, could not pull a truck load of “Fire Chief Gas and Texaco Motor Oil” up Main Street. In the late 1930s Ralph Lowe, through relationships he established while working at his Texaco station, levied his filling station on a new venture in oil exploration.

In June 1940 Lowe contracted to drill his first well on the Seth Campbell lease in Winkler County. His first attempt at drilling was the discovery of a 650-barrel-a-day well, yielding $1,800 every twenty-four hours. Named the No. 1 Seth Campbell, the successful strike led to the founding of Lowe Drilling Company and Lowe Petroleum Company. A year later, he bought his cable tool rig, and by 1943 his continued successful drilling resulted in his sale of twenty-five wells on 1,354 acres in the Weiner and Keystone pools along the Colby Sand Trend in Winkler County for $1 million.

Lowe created Maralo, LLC, and the company established an active role in all facets of the oil and gas industry. From 1943 through 1962 Lowe developed properties in fields such as the Fullerton Field, Welch Field in Dawson County, Deep Rock area in Andrews County, as well as fields in Lea County and Eddy County, New Mexico. He had extensive oil operations in the Permian Basin.

His wealth enabled him to extend his activities into other areas of business and philanthropy. In 1946 Midland businessmen partnered to build the eight-story Midland Building, and their investment company, Midland Building Company, purchased the filling station site at the corner of Wall and Colorado streets from Ralph Lowe for $50,000. Lowe was also a director for the operating company. In 1947 he donated $16,000 to the Midland Memorial Hospital building fund. Midland Memorial Hospital became the most modern and best-equipped hospital in that section of West Texas.

In 1948 the Texas Company, Humble Oil & Refining Company (see EXXON COMPANY, U.S.A.), and Ralph Lowe drilled the S.E. Jenkins, a 12,000-foot wildcat well in southwest Gaines County to explore the Ellenburger formation; other wildcat wells followed in the Deep Rock and Fullerton fields in Andrews County. In 1950 his Ralph Lowe No. 1 J. E. Hill, a central Midland County wildcat well located five miles southwest of Midland, was a discovery from the Dean sand of the Permian at a total depth of 9,440 feet in the Wolfcamp lime. Lowe continued to be deeply involved in the Fullerton drilling and found extensions of the Denton and Gladiola fields in Lea County, New Mexico. He was part of the Andrews County developments of the 1950s and also had significant roles in the Coyanosa Field in Pecos County and the Indian Basin Field in Eddy County. Lowe sold his interests in oil properties in Lea County, New Mexico; and Ector County, Texas, for $2 million in 1954.

In 1952 Lowe, with Paul Campbell of San Angelo and Dr. William Clyde Ikins of Houston, purchased a 71,000-acre ranch in Jeff Davis County for more than $2.2 million. He also had interests in a 1,600-acre tract in Reeves County with his brother Ted Lowe and developed that property into a thriving farm in a year. In 1955 Lowe purchased a home on a 200-acre private estate in Fort Worth’s exclusive Rivercrest section. The house had once been the home of W. T. Waggoner.

Lowe, a horseracing enthusiast, had acquired enough money by 1940 to own five racehorses. His small bay thoroughbred Gallant Man had an impressive record and won three of seven starts as a two-year-old in 1956. After losing the 1957 Kentucky Derby when jockey Bill Shoemaker infamously misjudged the finish line, Gallant Man returned to win the Belmont Stakes the same year by eight lengths over favored Bold Ruler. Gallant Man set an American record of 2:26.60 in the Belmont, and that record stood until Secretariat bested the mark sixteen years later. Gallant Man continued to claim wins in 1957 and 1958. He posted an overall mark of 8–4–0 from fourteen starts and earnings of $298,280 as a three-year-old in 1957. Lowe sold a three-fourths interest in Gallant Man for a million dollars in 1958.

From 1940 until his death in 1965, Ralph Lowe had interests in more than 500 wells in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Mexico. He was a member of the Petroleum Clubs of Midland, Fort Worth, Dallas, and Houston. He also belonged to the Fort Worth Club, Rivercrest Club, Shady Oaks Club, and Ridglea Country Club. He was married to Erma Lee Gooch. They had one daughter, Mary Ralph Lowe. Ralph Frank Lowe died of emphysema on December 19, 1965, in Fort Worth, Texas. He was sixty-three. His funeral service was held at All Saints Episcopal Church in Fort Worth, and he was interred at Greenwood Memorial Park and Mausoleum in the same city. He was survived by his wife of thirty-eight years and his daughter, who was a student at Texas Christian University at that time. A few years later, Mary Ralph Lowe took over the running of the family’s oil and gas business as CEO of Maralo, LLC.

In 1972 Lowe’s widow, Erma, presented Fort Worth’s Trinity Valley School with a new football field in memory of her late husband. Ralph Lowe was inducted into the Petroleum Museum Hall of Fame in Midland in 1973. In 1988 Erma Lowe and her daughter, Mary Ralph Lowe, created the Lowe Foundation to support women's and children’s health and educational needs. The foundation had assisted more than 400 organizations by the mid-2020s. Ralph Lowe had been a strong supporter of Texas Christian University (TCU), and his wife and daughter served on the board of trustees of that institution. In 2002 Mary Ralph Lowe made a $1.5 million gift to TCU to endow a chair of Texas history—the Erma and Ralph Lowe Chair of Texas History. In 2021 she helped endow and name the Ralph Lowe Energy Institute, formerly the TCU Energy Institute, at the TCU Neeley School of Business to honor the late Ralph Lowe as a leader in the energy industry.