calsfoundation@cals.org
March 6, 1920
Charles H. Murphy Jr. was born in El Dorado (Union County). Murphy’s father had him manumitted by court order when Murphy was sixteen years old so that he could transact business legally for himself. When Murphy’s father had a stroke, Murphy became the leader of the family business at age twenty-one. The family’s lumber, banking, and oil interests in southern Arkansas eventually became the Murphy Oil Corporation.