<p>One of America&rsquo;s most colorful oilmen was Ernest Whitworth Marland, a man who had much in common with other industrial giants of his age-- the Mellons, Rockefellers, the Morgans.</p><p>Moving to Ponca City, Oklahoma, from Pennsylvania shortly after the turn of the century, Marland quickly found oil on the lands of the Ponca and the Osage Indians.</p><p>E.W. Marland was a man of paradox--an advocate of unhampered oil exploration but also a champion of oil conservation, a man who lived in luxury but espoused the common causes of his idol, Franklin D. Roosevelt.</p>