Arthur Harvey Major Arthur Harvey was born in Edom , Van Zandt County , Texas , on September 26 , 1895 . He was a writer , businessman , oil pioneer , family man and a veteran of both World War I and II . Early life . Prior to enlisting for military service , Arthur worked in the lumber business , handling a canthook on the skidway of a small East Texas saw mill for $ 1 . 50 a day . Another early job was pushing a wheelbarrow filled with mortar to help build a brick plant near Garrison , Texas . This job also paid $ 1 . 50 a day . This was six - day work , but he had to spend fifty cents a day seven days a week for board . He then got a job picking cotton for fifty cents per hundred pounds of cotton — with free board . He made enough profit to make a good start toward growing a crop of his own in East Texas . World War I . He enlisted in World War I and served with the 9th Infantry Regiment , 2nd Infantry Division in which he received battle stars at St . Mihiel , Champagne and Meuse - Argonne . Based on his military records he was active from August 5 , 1917 until August 18 , 1919 and he was promoted from private to Sergeant . During the war , he made friends with a young woman , Marta , in the village in Germany near which he was stationed . After World War II he sent gifts to aid her and her family during the rebuilding of Germany . He always received thank - you letters from her , written in English , telling him a little about her family . He wrote her once and said in it that when he was a bombing officer during the war he always thought of her when they would go on a bombing raid . The IRS and Oil . After his discharge from the Army , he returned to Rusk County and married Elizabeth Gage of Laneville , Texas in 1919 . He farmed in Rusk County for a year , and realized late in 1920 that his savings were gone and his farming prospects were not good . He then took the job of a substitute railway clerk in Houston . His job was to toss the bags full of mail off the " mail car " — a freight car in which the postal workers were sorting , bagging and delivering mail . At this time , he and his wife resided at 706 Smith Street with their daughter , Elizabeth Inez Harvey ( born January 15 , 1921 ) . This address , 706 Smith Street , is where the Federal building is now located in downtown Houston . By 1926 , Arthur Harvey had reached the top salary possible as a railway mail clerk . When he had gone as far as he could go in the Post Office , he felt he had to open up more opportunities somehow . He found out that the Internal Revenue Service offered very good possibilities , but to go there he had to take a demotion . This decision meant a lower salary and that he would have to sell their house . In order to get at job with the IRS , he needed to study for exams , which he took just as fast as he was eligible . To do this he carried small cards in his suit jacket pocket with the information noted on them . He would study these whenever he had a few minutes , and even when he was in his 70 ' s he used those " flash cards " to learn Spanish . He passed all the IRS exams and began working for Bureau of Internal Revenue in 1926 . He quickly moved up the ranks and became a highly ranked auditor . He handled many fraud investigations for what is now the Criminal Division of the Internal Revenue Service , being stationed in Dallas and Tyler and working throughout the nation . Eventually he would write the manual on what constitutes criminal fraud in tax matters . That manual was still in use many years later ( Joyce Neville , July 10 , 2006 ) . In 1928 Arthur ' s wife , Elizabeth Gage , died . Shortly after , he met Sylva Irene Vogelsong of Mechanicsburg , Pennsylvania and they were married in 1929 . In the years that followed they had two children : Arthur Herbert Harvey in 1931 and Sylva Anne Harvey in 1933 . Around this same time , while still working for the IRS , Arthur began to learn something about the oil business by auditing some oil men . After intense study ( the oil business was new at the time ) , he had a chance to make an investment in a percentage of royalty in a little piece of real estate that soon became famous as the East Texas Oil Field , home of Spindletop and other historic gushers . With the money he had saved from oil royalties while he continued to work for the BIR / IRS , he was able to drill his own well in 1939 . He chose Marion County , Illinois , for his first operation , which resulted in the discovery of the Tonti oil field . This field has produced several million barrels of oil . Since Mr . Harvey owned the center of this field , the Tex - Harvey Oil Company was set up to handle its development . It was later sold . But Arthur continued to drill wells as the money came in from his Illinois boom . He took many chances and came up dry on nine different ventures until the tenth , which he drilled in Anderson County , Texas in 1941 . This latest drilling brought on the discovery of the East Long Lake field , all of which was now owned by the Harvey Company . World War II . Arthur Harvey volunteered again for military service in World War II and was commissioned a captain in the Army Air Forces . He was sent to Italy as intelligence Officer ( S2 ) for the 449th Bombardment Group ( Heavy ) . This unit conducted strategic bombings in Northern Italy , Southern France , Yugoslavia , and other areas . The group was given a unit citation for its attack on the Ploieşti oil fields in Romania , vital to the Nazis . Harvey came out of World War II a major . Later life . Major Harvey returned to the United States and resumed active management of the " Tex " Harvey Oil Company , of which he was president and sole owner . He published the book Creed of an American Business Man and has a park in Denver , Colorado named after him ( Harvey Park — although it is a park , it is also more fundamentally a neighborhood ) . Mr . Harvey died on March 22 , 1976 and was buried in Ft . Logan National Cemetery in Denver , Colorado ( Section Q site 7142 ) .