Herman and Margarett Root Brown Family Papers

Herman Brown, born in Belton, Texas in 1892, and Margarett Root, born in 1895, were married in 1917. Having begun doing construction work in Belton in 1914 and being paid in used equipment and mules, Herman formed a business which his brother-in-law Dan Root joined in 1919. They were in turn joined by Herman’s younger brother George in 1922. For the first twenty years their work was primarily road paving and bridge building throughout Texas. In 1942, with federal government involvement through freshman congressman Lyndon Baines Johnson, they completed a 1.3-mile-long dam near Austin.

World War II prompted the company’s expansion into ship-building, and it produced 359 destroyer escorts and other ship types. After the war Brown and Root expanded by acquiring (for $143 million) the U.S. government’s Big Inch and Little Big Inch pipelines (originally built to replace tanker ships vulnerable to German submarines).

In 1951 Herman and George Brown and their wives set up the Brown Foundation, which has made large gifts beginning with Rice University, Southwestern University (Margarett Root Brown’s alma mater), and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Two children joined the family of Herman and Margarett Brown, who had no children of their own. Louisa and Michael Stude were adopted and raised by the Browns but kept their birth names because their natural parents were still living.

Herman Brown died on November 15, 1962, and Margarett followed in 1963. To honor the memory of Margarett, George Brown and his wife Alice donated funds used to establish a residential college at Rice University. Margarett Root Brown College was dedicated October 3, 1965.