Bio: Ernest R. Ratcliff; Amite Co., MS., then Caddo Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller
Date: 1999-2000





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Ernest R. Ratcliff.  One of the first pioneers of oil operators in the North
Louisiana field in Caddo Parish was Ernest R. Ratcliff of Shreveport, whose
name is associated with some of the biggest undertakings in the petroleum
industry of the southwest, and who is still active in business, though retired
from some of his heavy official responsibilities.

Mrs. Ratcliff was born in Amite County, Mississippi, March 10, 1874, son of
Holloway H. and Frances Virginia (Jenkins) Ratcliff.  He was born and reared
on the 2,000 acre cotton plantation of his father, was educated in local
schools, and showed his independence and initiative by leaving home when
thirteen years of age and coming to Louisiana, and when fifteen went on to
Texas and began a service that continued for a number of years as a railroad
worker.  His first employment was with the Santa Fe Railway, subsequently with
the cotton belt line and finally with the Texas and Pacific Railroad.  With
the Texas and Pacific he was assigned to outy at Shreveport in 1896, and that
city has ever since been his home.  He was engaged in the wholesale grocery
business from 1898 until 1905, when he made his first investment in the oil
industry, and from a modest beginning his operations have extended on a larger
scale until in 1911 he organized and became president of the Louisiana Oil
Refining Corporation of Shreveport.  He was executive head of this corporation
until December 1, 1923, when he retired and since that time has engaged
individually as a developer and owner of oil property.  At about the same time
he retired from the presidency of the Invincible Oil Corporation.  The
Louisiana Oil Refining Corporation under his executive management became an
industry of far reaching proportions in North Louisiana.  The company built
and operated its own refinery, and had a large share of the business involved
in the production, refining and marketing of oil from this portion of the
southwest fields.

Mr. Ratcliff was a soldier in the noted First Louisiana Infantry in the
Spanish-American war.  His time and means have been freely given to business
and semi-public enterprises in Shreveport.  Among other interests he is a
director of the First National Bank of Shreveport.

Mr. Ratcliff married Miss Rubie Moss, of Shreveport, and they have two
children, Bessie, who is married, and Miss Rubie Moss Ratcliff.  He is a
thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, a Knight Templar and a Shriner.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 210, by Henry E. Chambers.  Published by
The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.