Billy sol estes biography template

Billie Sol Estes was a man of Texas-sized contradictions. On Sundays, the lay preacher in the Church of Christ railed against sin.

Billy sol estes biography template

The rest of the week, he was a fast-talking flimflam man who built up a $150 million agricultural business by looting federal farm programs, paying kickbacks to bankers and politicians, and taking out thousands of sham mortgages. When his empire came crashing down in the early 1960s amid allegations of fraud and murder, the shock waves went all the way up to then–Vice President Lyndon Johnson.

Born on a farm near Clyde, Texas, Estes “showed early promise as a financier,” said The New York Times.

At age 13, he was given a lamb as a gift, sold its wool for $5, bought another lamb, and went into business. “By the time he entered the U.S. Merchant Marine during the Second World War,” said The Guardian (U.K.), “he had $38,000.” After the war he snapped up farmland around the town of Pecos and branched out into gr