William K. Warren, Sr.

William Kelly Warren Sr. (December 3, 1897 – June 11, 1990) was an American businessman and philanthropist who founded the Warren Petroleum Corporation of Delaware in 1922. He and his company (headquartered in Tulsa) soon became specialists in the production and marketing of liquefied petroleum gas, a byproduct of petroleum refining and natural gas purification. Warren sold his company to Gulf Oil Corporation in 1953 for $450 million, the largest such merger in the energy industry up to that time. Warren then turned his attention to philanthropy and established the Saint Francis Hospital system in Tulsa.

Early life Warren was born in Nashville, Tennessee, to Thomas Hines and Amelia Elizabeth Cecil Warren on December 3, 1897. Little has been published about his childhood and adolescence. One source says that he dropped out of school after eighth grade because of his father's death. A brief biography, published in 1987, when the Tulsa Historical Society inducted him into its hall of fame, indicates only that he struggled with poverty during those years, and that he had jobs as "... a newspaper carrier, a Western Union messenger, a peanut vendor in a baseball park, a drug store employee, a door-to-door salesman and even a dance hall instructor." While living in Nashville, where he attended parochial schools. Apparently he decided to leave Nashville in 1915, and went to work as a railroad clerk, earning $40 a month.

Warren worked for a few years as assistant to Patrick J. Hurley, who was then vice president of Gilliland Oil Company. Warren Petroleum, along with Monterey Oil Company and J. R. Butler founded the Transwestern Pipeline Company on March 11, 1957. On November 10, 1953, Gulf Oil Corporation bought Warren Petroleum Corporation for $420 million. The deal was called the largest exchange of money in the industry until then.

After selling his company to Gulf, Warren devoted much of his time, energy and money to philanthropic activities. In 1945 he created the William K. Warren Foundation.

The Foundation established the Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa in 1959 and Laureate Psychiatric Hospital and Clinic in 1989. It opened the Laureate Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital in 1989. and the William K. and Natalie O. Warren golf course at Notre Dame is named after Mr. and Mrs. W. K. Warren Sr.

Legacy William Warren Sr. was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1961, two years after the induction of his wife in 1959.

Marriage and family While living in Nashville, Warren had met Natalie Overall, the daughter of a Methodist preacher.

Together, they had six daughters and one son: Dorothy, Natalie, Marilyn, Patricia, Elizabeth (Libby), Jean and William. Their son, William K. Warren Jr., also a successful businessman and philanthropist who chaired the family foundation for years after his father's retirement, lives in Tulsa.