John Gruard McCaskey born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 3, 1874, was an essential factor in opening up the oil fields of Oklahoma and Texas.

[1] From this he had built an extensive commercial enterprise, owning a large number of factories making sauerkraut in Ohio, Pennsylvania (the SnowFloss brand) and New York (the Seneca Kraut and Pickling Company).

[4] A drilling lease was obtained on the Willie Cry Ponca Indian allotment and on June 11, 1911 the well "Willy-Cries-For-War" struck oil, bringing wealth to the company and its investors.

The remarkable achievements of McCaskey were compressed into the short span of forty-nine years, for he died in Pittsburgh, January 12, 1924, leaving five orphaned children, only a few years after his wife (Mary Florence Ashford) died, July 11, 1921, in an automobile accident while motoring to their summer home on Lake Erie.

[6] In 1927, the Executor Harrison Nesbit (President of the Pittsburgh Bank, board member of the Cleveland Fed, and Westing House Electric and Weirton Steel) requested that the Pennsylvania Orphans Court approve Wentz’s paying an additional $1.8 million for McCaskey’s 1/3 ownership for these properties, which was easy for him to do, since by 1927 the properties were producing $1.0 million per month.