Oklahoma

Story: Bakken boom brings more billions and a chance to dabble in politics

By Steven Mufson August 13, 2012

1 of 8 | Harold Hamm leaves after he made a quick visit to the humble home (R) where he'd lived in as a boy in Lexington, OK. Hamm, the CEO of Continental Resources in Oklahoma, is a proponent of the Keystone XL pipeline project and a Mitt Romney supporter. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)


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Harold Hamm, who grew up just across the tracks, has a lot to savor these days. As the youngest of a sharecropper’s 13 children, Hamm spent his earliest years nearby picking cotton until the first snowfall or Christmas, whichever came first.

Today, the 66-year-old Hamm is a multibillionaire who could buy the entire town several times over.

Read his story here.