The latest Forbes List of America's Richest Families has a Texas flavor. Twenty-one families in the Lone Star State were named to the list of 185 wealthiest clans in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth area topped the statewide list, with nine families. Houston had seven (if you include the family of the late Bud Adams, read on), San Antonio had two and Uvalde, Tyler and Midland each had one family included.
The list, which was released Wednesday, includes multigenerational families of all sizes, ranging from just two brothers to the 3,500 members of the Du Pont clan. Families needed at least a combined net worth of $1 billion to make the cut.
The source of Texas wealth was predictable — oil, energy, chemicals — and sometimes surprising — the owners or founders of Academy Sports & Outdoors, Whataburger, H-E-B and Mary Kay Cosmetics were named to the elite list.
The four heirs of Houston oilman Dan Duncan ranked No. 10 on the overall list and tops in Texas, with an estimated net worth of $25.4 billion.
The 34 members of the Hunt family in Dallas ranked No. 13 overall with an estimated net worth of $15 billion.
Others on the list from Houston, with rank, estimated net worth and source of income are:
- Chao family (No. 62, $4.3 billion, chemicals)
- Friedkin family (No. 75, $3.3 billion, Toyota distributor),
- Gochman family (No. 100, $2.3 billion, Academy Sports & Outdoors),
- Mitchell family (No. 100, $2.3 billion, oil),
- Walter family (No. 121, $1.9 billion, energy),
- Adams family (No. 156, $1.3 billion, self-made). Bud Adams, who moved the Houston Oilers to Nashville in 1997, remained in Houston until his death last year, although Forbes says the family business in based in the Tennessee city.
The Dallas-Fort Worth list includes:
- Marshall family (No. 26, $9.3 billion, diversified),
- Bass family (No. 27, $9.1 billion, investments),
- Perot family (No. 48, $5.6 billion, diversified),
- Simmons family (No. 52, $5.2 billion, inherited),
- Rogers family (No. 115, $2 billion, Mary Kay Cosmetics),
- Westerman family (No. 147, $1.4 billion, oil),
- Colburn family (No. 156, $1.3 billion, electric equipment distributor),
- Dedman family (No. 164, $1.2 billion, country clubs).
In San Antonio, the Butt family, owners of H-E-B, have an estimated net worth of $10.1 billion and ranked No. 23 while the Dobson family, owner of Whataburger, ranked No. 142 with $1.5 billion.
Albert and Anne Chao.
The Hotel Saint Augustine has checked into Montrose.
Photo by Julie Soefer