With no heirs to leave it to, this billionaire is pouring his fortune into a Texas ghost town of about 25 people

The $124 trillion Great Wealth Transfer is underway, and baby boomers are passing down their fortunes to their heirs. 

But what happens when an ultrawealthy person has no descendants?

In the case of 81-year-old billionaire John Poindexter, he’s getting creative and funneling some of his wealth into a quite unexpected cause: a super small town in West Texas. 

Shafter, Texas, is a ghost town in a county that just keeps getting emptier. Presidio County had an estimated 5,433 residents in 2025, down 11.4% since 2020 and down from 7,818 in 2010, Census Bureau data shows. The median household income is just $43,802 (about half the median U.S. income), nearly one in five residents lives in poverty, and only about 1.6 people live per square mile. 

But Poindexter, a Houston manufacturing magnate, is betting on it anyway. Since late 2020, his Tidewater and Big Bend Foundation has taken in nearly $67 million in contributions, according to IRS filings compiled by ProPublica. That includes $20.6 million in the fiscal year ending November 2024, when the foundation reported $62.5 million in net assets.

The foundation’s signature project is Shafter, the former silver-mining town where about 25 people live, according to the Big Bend Sentinel. The plans, according to the Times, call for a resort and living history museum anchored by a rebuilt saloon,........

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