He was a member of the Científicos, as well as founder and president of the Banco Central Mexicano, vice-president of Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway, as well as governor of Chihuahua on two occasions, ambassador of Mexico to the United States, and Minister of Foreign Affairs of President Porfirio Díaz in the last years of his regime.

He was the son of Paz Cuilty Bustamante, a Mexican woman, and Reuben W. Creel, an American of English descent[10] from Greensburg, Kentucky.

[citation needed] After Porfirio Díaz became president of Mexico in 1876, he appointed Creel as a director of the National Board of Dynamite and Explosives.

The board imposed an 80% import duty on dynamite, allowing its members to manufacture explosives without competition and reportedly enabling Creel to amass an even larger fortune in kickbacks.

The bilingual Creel served as interpreter when Presidents Porfirio Díaz and William Howard Taft met in 1909 on the international bridge between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso.