Oil Baron, Philanthropist, Businessman. Josh started as a drugstore clerk in Baltimore, Maryland. He married Ottilie Fowitz in 1903, and at 21 he left for the oil fields of Oklahoma, Josh started as a teamster, then a rigger, and after gaining knowledge and enough savings he established a refinery in Bigheart, Oklahoma. Partly with the funds from this venture, in 1913 he built another refinery, one of the largest of its time, in West Tulsa and organized Cosden and Company. two miles upstream from the Texas Co. (later Texaco) refinery. At that time, it had a total capacity of less than 5,000 barrels of crude a day. Two years later, the refinery added 97 miles of pipeline to connect the plant to the famous Cushing oil field. This pipeline was the forerunner of the 3,500 mile Mid-Continent pipeline system. Cosden and Company changed their name to Mid-Continent Petroleum Corporation in 1925 and then merged with Sunray in 1955 to form Sunray Mid-Continent Oil Co. Sunray merged with Sun Oil in 1968. Soon he incorporated the Cosden Pipe Line Company and the Cosden Oil and Gas Company, controlling the crude oil and its transportation to his refinery. In 1917 he consolidated these into Cosden and Company, incorporated under Delaware law. In 1918 Cosden built Tulsa's first skyscraper, the Cosden Building, later the Mid-Continent Building, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NR 79002029). Many estimated Cosden's wealth at $50 million. Married twice, he divorced his first wife, Ottille and wed Eleanor Neves, the former Mrs. Charles Roeser, who had lived across the street. He then left Tulsa, living extravagantly and enjoying high society in New York. In addition to his business dealings he played the stock market. The Cosdens maintained luxurious residences in New York, Florida, and Rhode Island. His stable of thoroughbred racehorses earned him prominent recognition as one of the elite of Eastern society, and he lavishly bought his own railroad car and yacht. In 1924 Cosden and his wife hosted the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII. In 1925 Cosden lost control of his finances, and the Mid-Continent Petroleum Company acquired his refinery and other oil assets. He also had to sell his mansions. By 1928 he established headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, and invested in the exploration and drilling of the West Texas oil fields, accumulating another fortune estimated at $15 million. The Great Depression again depleted his funds. On November 17, 1940, Josh Cosden died of a heart attack in Arizona aboard a train traveling to El Paso. The Daily Oklahoman's obituary claimed that in the week before his death Cosden's reputed final assets had sold at a public auction in New York.

The information in this bio is mostly from https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=CO065 written by Larry O'Dell.