Missouri rhymes with billionaire?
What happens if you kick a trash can over in New York City? A millionaire falls out. What happens if you kick a trash can over in Missouri? You get cited for littering.
Missouri isn’t known for our staggering monuments to material wealth. Quite the opposite. With that said, between St. Louis, Columbia, and Springfield, a surprising number of the Midwest’s billionaire brigade calls Missouri home.
Who are Missouri’s billionaires? What do they do?
#36 – Jack Taylor, worth $11.4B
Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Jack Taylor, the fellow who founded the company, are St. Louis locals. Enterprise has a reputation for hiring frat boys straight out of college, and if they do a good enough job they wind up with a cushy job downtown at Enterprise HQ. Jack’s the highest ranking Missouri billionaire on Forbes’ list.
#84 – Stanley Kroenke, worth $5.3B
You might think he married into money, but Mr. Kroenke was a successful real estate developer before he married Ann Walton, heiress to the Walmart fortune. He turned real estate success into a number of ownership stakes in major professional sports teams, including the Colorado Avalanche, the Denver Nuggets, the Colorado Rapids, and the St. Louis Rams.
#95 – Ann Walton Kroenke, worth $4.7B
Ann inherited her money from her father Bud Walton, an heir to the Walmart fortune. Before that, she married a wealthy real estate developer with a penchant for professional sports franchises. You’ll have to look somewhere else if you’re looking for success tips beyond “Choose your parents wisely!” Both Ann and her husband Stanley are Columbia natives.
#110 – John Morris, worth $4B
You won’t find many tech billionaires like Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg in the United States’ geographical center. What you will find are salt-of-the-earth retail and service business billionaires. John Morris, founder of the wildly successful outdoor sporting goods chain Bass Pro Shops, is a perfect example. When it comes to the Midwest’s billionaires, their businesses cater more to country folk than app-obsessed city kids.
#122 – Pauline MacMillan, worth $3.B
Everything thinks it would be great to be born into money. But nobody ever thinks about what it’s like to live in the shadow of their parents. No matter what you do, you’ll always be “born into it.” And that kind of sucks. That and there’s just not much to write home about when it comes to these heirs and heiresses who inherited all their money from their parents. Pauline doesn’t even have her own Wikipedia page…
Collect ‘em all
When they’re not busy jet-setting around the world growing their empires, most of Missouri’s billionaires are hanging out around town just like normal people. The next time you’re out and about, see if you can spot one of Missouri’s six billionaires having lunch or a drink.
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