An early Louis Suess Oil Well venture, left, was one of Volentine's "dusters" 12 miles southeast of Trenton. (File photo) [Click to enlarge]

One of the more interesting citizens of our city in the last 125 years, and one who made a profound difference in the area was Myatt Volentine, who arrived in McCook in 1925, aboard a slow moving freight train at age 15, with less than $100 in his pocket.

Myatt was born near Newport, Ark., the son of a substantial plantation owner.

Myatt was not much interested in school, and though his mother managed to keep him there until he had completed the eighth grade, he was much more interested in the trapping of possums, raccoons, and mink for their furs.

Not that Myatt enjoyed trapping the animals himself. Instead, from the age of 13 he rode the bottomlands of Eastern Arkansas on horseback, buying the furs from the area farmer/trappers, and then taking those furs to the dealers in St. Louis. His business was brisk, and he was widely known as the youngest (and one of the sharpest) fur dealers in the St. Louis market.

The St. Louis fur traders were a worldly lot, and the 15 year old Myatt learned a great deal, both good and bad from his association with these men.

Wise, and cocky beyond his years, Myatt and his religious parents came to a parting of the ways when they objected to his gambling (a game called "Galloping Dominos") which he played with the plantation cotton pickers. Defying their authority he ran away from home.

From some forgotten source he had heard about Wauneta, and decided to embark on his quest to become rich in that community. With few resources besides a nimble mind, ambition and a flair for salesmanship, Myatt decided he would be an automobile dealer -- a curbstone dealer with no stock in trade.

He had only been in Wauneta a short time when word came to him that his mother had passed away, and left him $750. With some of that money he bought his first car, (though still too young to own a driver's license) and sold it for a profit. From that humble beginning he parlayed his inheritance, (with a bit of help from family friends), into General Motors franchises, in Wauneta, Palisade and Imperial. Often during those early years he was barely one step ahead of the General Motors executives, floating checks and doing business on General Motors capital.

By the time he turned 21 (and General Motors discovered he was under age and all his notes with that company had been void, legally), Myatt had sold out his interests in Wauneta, Palisade, and Imperial for over $100,000, and had moved to McCook, where he bought property on West 2nd Streed and continued in the auto business, this time with Ford and Chrysler franchises.

In 1954 Volentine sold his interests in his McCook auto dealerships (to Lemoyne Anderson and Manny Reynolds), though he continued to deal in McCook real estate, in addition to business interests in Denver, a bank in Sydney, and probably most important of all, oil wells in the Kimball area.

Myatt Volentine had always been interested in the oil business. He had heard the stories of old-timers, about the presence of oil in our area, and from his business associates, about the oil in the western part of the state. Myatt had the soul of a wildcatter, and the nerves of a Riverboat gambler. It was natural that he would decide to participate in buying up oil leases in the Kimball area when the Nebraska oil boom really took off.

Though he was actively involved in the oil exploration business in the Kimball area by the time he sold his automobile interests in McCook, Volentine was also quietly (though actively) buying up leases around McCook, in Red Willow, Hitchcock, Frontier, Furnas, Chase, Hayes, and Dundy Counties.

Oil wells had been attempted in the area since 1929, with a drilling attempt in Frontier County. Louis Suess (of DeGroff's Store) and Harold Sutton (Sutton's Jewelry), among others had made repeated attempts to establish a viable oil industry in the region, but no consequential oil had been discovered by the time Volentine set out on his quest.

For a time it appeared that Volentine's venture into oil in Southwest Nebraska was a mistake, and that the fellow with the "Golden Touch" had ventured into the wrong area. Though his early investments in oil wells in the Kimball area had been successful his luck had turned sour, and that bad luck carried over to his wells in the McCook area.

At one point Volentine (and his partners) had hit 18 dry holes in a row. During this period Volentine had occasion to visit with a Gazette reporter, who naturally asked him about the series of "dusters" that he had drilled. It was observed that a man needs a very understanding wife to hit 18 dry holes in a row and still stick with him.

Myatt Volentine smiled and allowed that that was true and then gave this advice to the reporter, "No one should invest in oil wells unless they can afford to lose. It's the biggest gamble in the world. And a person should know exactly what he is doing all the time."

And Volentine did indeed know exactly what he was doing. He was persuaded to keep drilling on leases Southwest of McCook, which became known as the Ackman and Sleepy Hollow Fields. In 1961 he sold out his interest in the Ackman Field for $300,000, and his interest in the Sleepy Hollow Field for some $3 million.

Soon after disposing of his oil interests in Southwest Nebraska, Myatt moved from McCook to pursue business interests in California and was instrumental in developing a number of shopping malls in that state. He was successful there as usual, though not in his own mind.

In recent years a long time acquaintance of Volentine's from McCook paid him a visit and mentioned his remarkable successes in California. Myatt would have none of it, "I could have done so much better had I had the courage to leverage my investments." Maybe those 18 dry holes did make a lasting impression after all.

Though Myatt Volentine was gone from McCook for many years, he never did forget McCook. He continued to have rental properties in downtown McCook, and was a generous donor to the McCook College Foundation Scholarship Fund.

Over the years, this fellow, who found no need of education (past the 8th grade) for himself, helped dozens of young people to attend McCook College. But ever the maverick, Myatt felt that the scholarship recipients would profit more if they paid those scholarships dollars back to the Foundation as interest free loans, thus enabling other young people to benefit as well from that money.

"A hand up, but not a handout!" So far, the system has worked very well.

Toward the end of his life Myatt softened somewhat. He dearly loved to hear about the students who had received Volentine Loans to further their educations and cherished the letters, which were written to him by the students, telling of their plans and achievements.

Upon his death, McCook received further proof that Volentine had never forgotten the city he considered his "hometown," with gifts to further the McCook College Volentine Loans (plus some pure scholarship funds), gifts to Community Hospital, and to many other community organizations and projects. His influence on our town will be felt for years to come.

Source: Gazette Centen-nial Edition 1882-1982