Born: 1900

Died: 1939

Born in Brownsville, TN on January 9, 1900 Richard Halliburton was destined to become one of the most dashing and celebrated adventurers / authors since Marco Polo.

Halliburton's family moved to Memphis shortly after his birth. Educated largely at Memphis University School, Halliburton briefly had the dubious distinction of being the only boy at the Hutchison School For Girls where his mother was a teacher.

Toward the end of his primary education Richard's father moved him to Lawrenceville, a prep school located close to Richard's intended university, Princeton. Although he entered that university with the class of 1921 he never completed his college education. Right after his sophomore year Richard, without warning, Halliburton traveled to New Orleans and boarded a steamer as an ordinary seaman. He immediately regretted the move when he experienced the hard work and privations of a seaman's life. Choosing to return home, Halliburton was told by his mother that he should return to the ship and see through his commitment. Halliburton never looked back again.

A letter home from Richard was so artfully written and filled with colorful, enthusiastic details of his earliest adventure struch his father as worthy of publishing. Mr. Halliburton showed the letter to his friend C.P.J. Mooney, then editor of the Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper. Mooney published the letter and asked for more. Wildly popular with Memphis readers the fisrt collection of letters were combined into a book in 1924 (along with other articles he had previously sold to Travel, Field and Stream and National Geographic. Halliburton insisted on the title “The Royal Road to Romance“. Among many other things the book gave an account of Halliburton's climbing of the Matterhorn (he had never climbed a mountain before).

In a few short years Richard Halliburton became the 6th most sought after lecturer in the United States. He set off on more adventures before the book was published. The book received little critical success, but became a best-seller. Halliburton continued to travel and write for the remainder of his short life. In his time he re-traced the conquests of Cortez, Climbed Mount Olympus and swam in the Hellespont.

His adventures continued to sell books for many years, but he lost most of his money in the stock market crash of 1929 and seemed unable to hold on to what money he did have. A habitually poor manager of his finances Richard Halliburton eventually found himself in debt. Although he managed to set that aright he was now going on “adventures“ whether he wanted to or not. His last major adventure and fund-raising effort was for an ocean crossing on a junk out of Hong Kong. The mis-adventure was riddled with problems from the start and at one point the junk returned to Hong Kong for repairs. Perhaps due to financial commitments Halliburton pressed on and the junk was lost at sea 19 days after re-embarking.

Halliburton is comemorated today in Memphis by the tallest building on the campus of Rhodes College (formerly named Southwestern). That building, the Halliburton Memorial Tower hosts a massive bell which rings on the hour and an enscription outside which reads “He Flew Too Close To The Sun“.