Howard Hughes (at center, holding script) talks with actor Walter Huston (at left,with back to camera) on the set of the motion picture "The Outlaw."

Transcribed from attached press release: HUGHES TOOL COMPANY Cornerstone of the industrial empire of Howard Hughes is the Hughes Tool Company of Houston, Texas, which last year produced more than half a million rock bits for drilling the kind of deep wells now producing 90 per cent of the world's petroleum. In the company's mechanical testing section (above) engineers test the products under conditions simulating actual drilling. Howard Hughes' father's invention of the rock bit is believed to be one of the most important industrial developments of the century; without such a tool we might still be living in a horse and buggy era."

Arrangement note: Series I. Demonstrations, Subseries I.A. Frontier Strike

Description given with photo: "Float Flying Boat, San Pedro, Calif.: Workmen prepare to float Howard Hughes' 200-ton plywood flying boat at San Pedro on Nov. 1st for taxi tests in Los Angeles Harbor. The craft can be seen in its mammoth drydock, where it was assembled and outfitted. Credit Line (ACME) 11/04/47."

Howard Hughes shakes hands with a young fan, probably after the Senate War Investigating Committee hearings in Washington, D.C., August 1947. Two police officers and a woman onlooker stand nearby.