Oil Man.  He was a rogue wildcatter who at age 70 discovered the East Texas Oilfield,  the largest in the United States at that time.  Born near Center Star,  Alabama,  he studied law and in 1883 set up practice in Tennessee.  From 1889 to 1891 he served in the State Legislature.  Enticed by the bourgeoning oil industry,  Joiner moved to Oklahoma in 1897 and made several fortunes as a wildcatter,  only to lose them through dubious business decisions.  In 1926 he arrived in Rusk County,  Texas,  where he leased the 975-acre farm of widow Daisy Bradford and spent the next four years searching for oil deposits.  The first two wells he dug were failures,  which seemed to confirm geologists’ opinions that there was no crude to be found in the region.  Others claimed – with reason,  as it turned out – that Joiner was an old con artist and that his flimsy drilling equipment (consisting mostly of rusty pipes and a sawmill boiler for power) was merely a prop to scam investors.  But on September 5,  1930,  Joiner’s third well,  the “Daisy Bradford No. 3”,  struck “black gold” at 3500 feet.  Corporate and independent oil men from across the country raced to the scene to buy leases,  and what became the East Texas Oilfield eventually spread out to 140,000 acres.  The resulting glut helped destabilize the US oil market in the early 1930s and had a negative impact on the international economy,  thus deepening the Depression.  Joiner himself was soon in legal trouble for grossly overselling shares in his venture. Just two months after striking it big he went  into receivership and was forced to sell his holdings to  H.L. Hunt for $1 million.  He then retired to Dallas.  Many people became very rich from Joiner’s discovery (including Hunt),  but Joiner was not one of them.  At his death his assets were listed as “of nominal value”.  Today the East Texas Oilfield remains the largest in the US outside of Alaska. (bio by: Bobb Edwards)