To support themselves, they worked a variety of jobs in fields such as railroad building, mining and lumbering, and spent one winter trapping fur animals in the Bitterroot Mountains.

Under the guidance and help of his elder brothers, Frank and L. E. Phillips, he moved from a short period of coal mining in Iowa to petroleum operations in 1906, centered on Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

[7] In 1938 during the Great Depression, Phillips donated his immense home to the city of Tulsa, which adapted it into the Philbrook Museum of Art.

After donating the mansion to the city, Phillips and his wife Genevieve moved into a 23-room 3,000 square feet (280 m2) penthouse residence that he had added to the Philcade in 1937.

[9] In addition to his oil business, Phillips was actively engaged in banking, city real estate developments and the operation of ranches in several Rocky Mountain regions.

His first choice of ranches were lands in the western foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Cimarron, New Mexico, acquired in 1922.

In 1938 and in 1941, Phillips donated 127,000 acres (510 km2) of his Ranch to the Boy Scouts of America, complete with water, mineral and timber rights.

All equipment and livestock was included in the gift with the idea that diversified ranch operations would provide educational benefits to Boy Scouts and would add to the endowment income.

Waite and Genevieve Phillips are buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.