How Many Of America’s 25 Wealthiest Families Are From Texas?

Things are just bigger in Texas...including family wealth apparently.

Of the 25 wealthiest families in American, a large portion are headquartered in the state of Texas. While Texas doesn't lead the United States in number of "wealthiest families", it doesn't do too bad. In fact, Texas has the second most families that land on this list.

Taking a look at the Top 25, Texas lands a whopping 4 families on the list. That's second only to New York and it's 5 families (ha!).

While some of these Texas families have interesting stories about their wealth; from oil to grocery stores, its most famous wealthy family has more to do with tabloids, and less to do with industry.

J. Howard Marshall (pictured above) was born in Pennsylvania and raised a Quaker. After a successful career in American Government (rose to Assistant Solicitor at the Department of the Interior) Marshall got into the oil business.

By the 1950s, Marshall had co-founded Great Northern Oil and was refining Canadian crude oil. Eventually Marshall sold out of the business in a "stake swap" with the origins of Koch Industries. These maneuvers would set up Marshall's estate to become one of the biggest in Texas once he relocated.

But none of that catches national headlines. J. Howard Marshall is most well known as the husband of Anna Nicole Smith. The pair married in June of 1994, just over a year before Marshall died. Setting off a massive legal battle over the family fortune. A massive fortune that still ranks among the top 25 in the nation.

See the other families that made the rankings here: