Governor Ross Sterling, a onetime chairman of Humble Oil, had issued proration orders even before Dad Joiner brought in the Daisy Bradford No. 3. But the Railroad Commission was all but powerless to enforce them, and they were widely ignored. Hunt, a stranger to most Texas oilmen, quickly emerged as one of proration’s strongest proponents; though an independent, he was sitting on millions of barrels of oil, which he would need time to drill.
