81-year-old billionaire with no wife or children plans to spend his fortune reviving a Texas ghost town with just 25 residents

The 81-year-old American billionaire John Poindexter, who has no wife and children has decided to spend all the fortune he built over four decades on a town in Texas that barely exists. Poindexter, a Houston manufacturing magnate, is betting on a super small town in West Texas. Shafter, Texas, is a ghost town in a county that just keeps getting emptier.

In 2025, Presidio County had an estimated 5,433 residents which is 11.4% down since 2020 and down from 7,818 in 2010, Census Bureau data shows. The median household income is $43,802, which is about half the US median income and nearly one in five residents live in poverty. The area has a very low population density, with about 1.6 people per square mile.

"I've never been married, I have no children," John Poindexter told the Times when asked why his money won't be given away to his family. That’s a different approach from Warren Buffett, who has directed his $140 billion wealth to four of his family’s foundations so they can choose how to spend it.


According to IRS filings compiled by ProPublica, since late 2020, his Tidewater and Big Bend Foundation has received nearly $67 million in contributions, including $20.6 million in the year to November 2024. The assets was reported to be around $62.5 million. The New York Times reported this month that the foundation will eventually own all of his properties. This includes Cibolo Creek Ranch, a 30,000-acre resort south of Marfa. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died there in 2016.

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What is John Poindexter's plan for Shafter?

The foundation’s main project is Shafter, a former silver-mining town with about 25 residents, according to the Big Bend Sentinel. According to The Times, the plans include a resort and a living history museum. The project will feature a rebuilt saloon, general store and post office. About a dozen adobe homes will also be available for overnight stays. John Poindexter’s foundation will eventually own all of his properties, the Times reported, including the 30,000-acre Cibolo Creek Ranch where Justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016.

According to reports, Shafter’s Presidio Mine operated from 1883 to 1942 and it produced 35.2 million ounces of silver. But the town lost its pace after the mine was shut. By early 2025, Poindexter had bought several properties in Shafter and also offered to restore the historic church at the town’s entrance, the Big Bend Sentinel reported. Not every resident is convinced, but the nearest grocery store is 19 miles away in Presidio, and a restaurant and shop would be welcome.

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David Long, a Shafter resident and president of the local water board, told the Sentinel that the restoration efforts could encourage more people to move to the town. “This is a wake-up call for sure, for people to start considering what’s going to happen to the town,” Long told the Sentinel. “Once we get a dependable, good water system in here, the place is going to boom.”

How Poindexter made his fortune

John Poindexter did not become a billionaire overnight and made his money slowly. A Vietnam veteran with two Silver Stars and two Purple Hearts, he spent 14 years in finance before founding J.B. Poindexter & Co. in Houston in 1985. He remains its sole owner. Even though information related to net worth is not known there in the public domain, the Times has described John Poindexter as a billionaire.

What is striking about his company is that his company grew from $40 million in revenue in 1994 to more than $2.7 billion in annualized revenue. It expanded through more than 40 acquisitions, according to a 2024 announcement from EY. The company makes the bodies of UPS’s brown delivery trucks and also produces 66% of step vans in the US Class 5 delivery market.

Poindexter is not the first wealthy American to try to restore a historic town. His plan for Shafter has been compared to Colonial Williamsburg. “It’s kind of the same as Colonial Williamsburg, where you can actually stay in town and then some of the structures will just be museum visiting,” Henry Thompson, an officer of Poindexter’s foundation, told the Big Bend Sentinel.

The restoration of Colonial Williamsburg began in 1926. John D. Rockefeller Jr. secretly bought properties in the former Virginia capital, according to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. He later committed $5 million to restore the entire town.

In 1966, John received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with Honors, from the University of Arkansas. Subsequently, New York University conferred upon him a Master’s degree in Business Administration in 1971 and a Ph.D. in Economics and Finance in 1976. He taught economics and finance as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Long Island University.

Following his undergraduate education, John volunteered for the U.S. Army and for Officer Candidate School.In 1971, John joined Salomon Brothers in New York City as an investment banker but within a few years transitioned into private equity investment.