1. Was Pleasant Humble from England?

• No. Pleasant Smith Humble was born in Louisiana, and spent much of his youth in Texas. As a young adult, he moved back to Louisiana, where he met his wife.

2. Why is the City of Humble pronounced as "umble", with a silent H?

• The town is named for Pleasant Humble. The pronunciation of the town follows the way he spoke his last name, with a silent H.
• Some false information claims the H is silent because he was from England, and that would be the way the English speak it.
• Hogwash! He was from Louisiana, not England.
• It turns out that the Humble family that is from the northern United States pronounces their name with the H (as Humble). The part of the family from the southern United States pronounces it without the H (as umble).

3. Isn't the City of Humble named after the Humble Oil Company?

• No. The City of Humble gains its name from the community of Humble, which was established in 1886, when government established a U. S. Post Office there in 1886. Pleasant Humble was responsible for applying for the post office, and he named the area for himself, as Humble, Texas. Oil was discovered in Humble in 1904, and the Humble Oil Field was one of the largest producing oil fields in the United States.
• The Humble Oil Company was established by Ross Sterling and his partners in 1911. At the time, Ross Sterling ran a feed store in Humble, and also ran a bank: the Humble State Bank. When the Humble Oil Company was founded in 1911, they used the Humble State Bank as their headquarters for many years.
• Interestingly, over time, the Humble Oil Company pronounced the company name with the H (as Humble). Since this was a worldwide successful oil company, and people around the world didn't know the idiosyncratic way the Humble name was pronounced, it was probably just easier to use the H (and not constantly explain why the H should be silent).