The Duncans – $26B
The Duncan family shows us what it is like to attain the American Dream. Raised by his grandma since the death of his mom and brother at the age of seven, Dan Duncan used to live in poverty in Texas. At one point, he tried his luck in the oil industry. He got lucky and made a fortune when he struck oil and started Enterprise Products Partners. The company took off during the formative years of the American oil industry. To this day, the family’s main source of wealth would be the oil and gas pipelines. They continue to make billions year after year! In 2010, Dan Duncan died at the age of 77. His $10 billion estate was left to his kids Dannine, Milane, Randa, and Scott. Since then, the wealth in the family has doubled! This has been attributed to the increasing stock prices for oil and certain payouts.
The Duncans – $26B
The Marshalls – $12B
The Marshalls also make for another excellent example of American wealth that came from oil. Howard Marshall II was the person who founded this family empire. The patriarch was a shareholder of the Great Northern Oil Company, though he traded them for what ended up becoming a 15% stake in one of the most profitable investment companies in America at the time: Koch Industries. He ended up leaving his shares to just one of his kids: J. Howard II. Unfortunately, he earned a reputation for giving the family various legal problems. He famously married Anna Nicole Smith, a former Playboy model, who was much younger than him. When she ended up with the majority of the empire, the other members of the family sued her in the hopes of reclaiming the fortune.
The Marshalls – $12B
