Hugh Roy Cullen was an American industrialist and philanthropist. Cullen was heavily involved in the petroleum industry having struck oil near Texas in 1928. He was a large supporter of multiple educational institutions in and around Houston, in one of which, the University of Houston, he became a longtime chairman of the board of regents. He is considered one of the most important figures in Texas during the "oil boom" era.

Jesse Holman Jones was an American Democratic politician and entrepreneur from Houston, Texas. Jones managed a Tennessee tobacco factory at age fourteen, and at nineteen, he was put in charge of his uncle's lumberyards. Five years later, after his uncle, M. T. Jones, died, Jones moved to Houston to manage his uncle's estate and opened a lumberyard company, which grew quickly. During this period, Jesse opened his own business, the South Texas Lumber Company. He also began to expand into real estate, commercial building, and banking. His commercial building activities in Houston included mid-rise and skyscraper office buildings, hotels and apartments, and movie theaters. He constructed the Foster Building, home to the Houston Chronicle, in exchange for a fifty percent share in the newspaper, of which he acquired control in 1926.