Know your school deformer billionaires: This week: Phil Anschutz [View All]

[Hannah Bell]

Philip Frederick Anschutz (1939), American billionaire born in Kansas now residing in Denver, Colorado. 123rd richest person in the world ($6 billion).

His great-grandfather Christian immigrated to the US (Russell, Kansas) with his family in 1878 & took up farming. (That was right around the time of the Russo-Turkish war, 1877-78).

Christian's son Carl (b. 1859) became a prominent Kansas citizen, amassing over 1000 acres of farm & stock land & interests in grain elevators. He became a director of the Farmers State Bank (chartered by Frank S Rockefeller, variously described as cousin or nephew of JD Rockefeller -- not JD's brother Frank. FS Rockefeller chartered a number of Kansas banks & was also a state politician, serving in the legislature.)

http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/1919ks/a/anschuc.html.

The second oil well in the US was drilled in Kansas (Paola) in 1860, & in 1916 Kansas was the biggest oil-producing state in the country. In 1918, when "A Standard History of Kansas" was published, Carl's brother Henry was involved in the oil industry "running an oil wagon in Spearville".

This is an oil wagon: http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt4q2nc67x/?brand=calisphere

Carl's son Fred speculated in land, cattle & oil; he drilled his first producing oil field near russell kansas in 1949.

The Anschutz family's ancestral home of Russell KS was also the hometown of Bob Dole (supposedly they lived "right down the road" from each other) & the family later backed Dole's political career.

In 1958 Fred incorporated the Anschutz Corp, which son Philip took over in the 60s.

That was Phil's grubstake, which he parlayed into more than half a billion with oil strikes in Wyoming & on his "ranch" in Utah, selling half the oil rights to Mobil.

From there, Phil branched out into railroads, which also gave him convenient right of ways to lay broadband cable for his next business, which became QWest.

Phil's an ultra-conservative christian who funds things like focus on the family & the anti-evolution discovery institute. He also dabbles in anti-gay initiatives.

Anschutz is supposedly the biggest private landowner in the US. He likes ranches & western art. His extended family are also big landowners, with cattle & other ag interests.

Anschutz owns or has major interests in about 100 companies:

Anschutz Entertainment Group
=Sports teams, including the LA Lakers
=Staples center & other venues
Crusader Entertainment
Forest Oil
Pacific Energy Group
Qwest Communications (17%)
Regal Entertainment Group (The largest U.S. theater chain with approximately 6,000 screens, more than half the company)
Union Pacific Railroad (largest shareholder, 6%)
Clarity Media Group, a newspaper conglomerate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Anschutz


Currently, he's investing heavily in sports & entertainment, including film -- which is how he came to bankroll the anti-union, anti-teacher film "Waiting for Superman" -- which is, strangely enough, being embraced by obama's ed head arne duncan & the decidedly non-fundie bill gates.

yes, politics & money do make strange bedfellows.