I know that Summerlin was the name of Howard Hughes' grandmother. But can you give us some background on who she was, who her husband was, and who her children were? Which child was Howard Hughes' mother or father?
Summerlin was the maiden name of Howard Hughes’s paternal grandmother, Jean Amelia Summerlin.
Howard Hughes’s grandfather, Felix Turner Hughes, was a lawyer in Missouri when he met and married Jean Amelia Summerlin in 1865. They had eight children (five survived childhood), the second of whom was Howard Robard Hughes, our Howard Hughes's father.
Howard Senior studied law at Harvard and the University of Iowa, then returned to Missouri to join Felix’s law firm, but left to find his fortune in mining and oil. He wound up in Oil City, Louisiana, where he invented an efficient bit for drilling for oil. With that early success, he started up Hughes Tool Co., headquartered in Houston. He married Allene Gano and had Howard the Second in 1905 (Hughes was born the same year as Las Vegas -- and Bugsy Siegel). Allene Hughes died in 1922; Howard Senior died two years later, leaving the bulk of his wealth to their 18-year-old only child and heir.
In the early ‘50s, Howard Junior bought the 25,000 acres that at the time were far to the west of Las Vegas, edging up against Red Rock Canyon, for $3 an acre. He wanted to move his airplane division, Hughes Aircraft, from southern California to the land, which he dubbed Husite. However, none of his key executives, managers, or mechanics were keen on desert exile, so that plan fell through.
The acreage sat there, owned and neglected by Hughes’s Summa Corporation, for decades. In the mid-‘80s, Summa announced plans for -- and the name of -- Summerlin, one of the largest master-planned communities in the U.S., now encompassing 22,500 acres and 21,000 homes. Another 5,000 acres can be developed for future growth.
For the whole story of the development of Summerlin, check out this QoD from 2020.
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Henry
Nov-30-2023
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Kevin Lewis
Nov-30-2023
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