Patillo

Pattillo Higgins, called by some the "prophet of Spindletop," was born on December 5, 1863, in Sabine Pass, Texas, the son of Robert James and Sarah (Raye) Higgins. By the time he was six, his family had moved to Beaumont, where he attended school until he reached the fourth grade. Thereafter he left school and apprenticed with his father, a gunsmith. As a teenager, Higgins was a troublemaker and a practical joker. At age seventeen he was involved in an altercation with some sheriff's deputies who were attempting to prevent him from harassing blacks. After the smoke cleared, a deputy was dead, and Higgins had suffered a wound in his arm that eventually led to its amputation. In the investigation and trial that followed, Higgins claimed he shot in self-defense and the jury believed him. After the incident he went to work in various lumber camps along the Texas-Louisiana border. The loss of his arm did not prevent him from logging nor did it seem to curb his wild ways. In 1885, however, his life took a dramatic turn after he attended a Baptist revival meeting. Persuaded by the preacher to accept Christ as his savior, Higgins abandoned his violent ways and the sometimes immoral atmosphere of the lumber camps to settle down in Beaumont and become a respectable businessman. As he explained, "I used to put my trust in pistols....now my trust is in God." Higgins's conversion was so complete that he began to teach Sunday School classes for young ladies at his home church. He had saved and invested his extra cash while working in the lumber camps, and upon his return to Beaumont he established himself as a real estate broker. In 1886 he expanded his business by forming the Higgins Manufacturing Company to make brick.