"Jack Lloyd, 67-year-old soldier of fortune, adventurer, veteran of several wars and numerous revolutions, known throughout the entire world as 'Burning Daylight' and hailed by newspapermen as the original globetrotting reporter, was a visitor for some time last Friday and Saturday in Houma."
So began a front-page article in the Feb. 6, 1936, Houma Courier.
"While in the city, the veteran called on the Courier, showed his many credentials, and announced that he was heading for New Orleans, to write on the development of the oil industry along the Gulf Coast.
"Lloyd has one of the most colorful lives of any one that has ever stopped at the Courier office, and to prove his travels, he produces clippings from papers the country over, to make good his ramblings -- according to Jack, in his travels, he has written individual copy for more than 4,000 newspapers.
"In his days he has edited more than a dozen, and has acted as correspondent for almost all of the leading wire and feature services, both in America and abroad.
"Booms the world over have been Jack's 'meat' and he tells you that the greatest boom that he ever made was the time that the 'little bits of glass' were found on the Veldts of the Kimberly.
"Jack toughed it from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and after arriving in the famous capital city of South Africa, wrote many of the feature articles for the American and European papers, regarding the world's greatest diamond boom."
It is not clear whether the account published in the Courier was written by Lloyd himself, or by Courier editors.
"During the great Alaskan rush when the cry of gold was heard from the Yukon and the Klondike, Jack broke into the "limelight", with his dogs, declaring himself as 'burning Daylight.'
"Jack London, wrote the story of 'Burning Daylight' after the life of Lloyd in Alaska."
London's novel by that name had been very popular 35 years earlier. Lloyd claimed to have panned for gold alongside London, and to have inspired the book.
"All of the great mining booms in the West also knew Jack and he recalls many of the greatest as he tells you his story.
"In the Leadville boom, he tells you of 'Silver Dollar' Tabor -- Cripple Creek, the Couer d'Alene country of Idaho, the colorful Black Hills of South Dakota, with Deadwood Dick, Calamity Jane and the one and only Poker Alice; then he tells you of the great Ghost City of today -- Virginia City, that once boasted more than 30,000 people. Butte and Helena. Tombstone and Bisbee; Goldfield and Ely, Silverton and Ouray. Denver in its hectic days of the Gay Nineties.
"Since the cry of oil has attracted the 'eyes of the world' Jack has followed the fields from Baku, Russia, to the Tampico field in Mexico and all of the best boom fields of this country."
The account suggested he was present at all the "booms," including more than 50 he named in Texas and adjacent states.
The Courier story goes on: "Wars and revolution have also seen Jack in action; he tells you the greatest thrill of his entire life was the time that he was with the late Pancho Villa more than 3 years in the late Mexican trouble. Jack was a chief aide to the late Mexican leader."
Likewise, "Jack tells you," of his presence in rebellions in Cuba, India, China, Ethiopia and more.
He claimed to have been with Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, and with Will Rogers and Tom Mix in the Boer War, claims supported chiefly by the sheaf of clippings he carried with him.
"Houma, and adjoining territory will see one of the greatest drilling campaigns ever staged in the Gulf Coast fields this spring, for Jack tells you that the oilmen of the country are all of the opinion that Houma will see a town site drilling campaign before the summer, then Jack also tells you that there is 'rumor' that there are to be at least two large oil lines built through this section, as well as another large gas line, and again he tells you at least 2 large casing head plants are to be erected within a short distance of Houma, with headquarters here. The Houma field is seen as the 'hot spot' for southeastern activities and as Jack has never missed his guess, he tells you, that if everything 'hits on eight' Houma will be a city of 20,000 people within a few years."
Similar extravagant stories appeared in newspapers from Lewiston, Idaho, to Tampa, Florida, but only in recent years were reporters able to access the different accounts by Internet, and question their veracity.
One modern story reports, "Capt. Lloyd said he was born June 20, 1868, in a covered wagon and at five was the only survivor of a wagon train massacre out of Abilene, Kansas.
"Calamity Jane picked him up at Deadwood, S.D., when he was seven, he said and 'I just happened to be at Deadwood when Jack 'Doc' McCall shot Wild Bill Hickok in the back.'"
Another recent researcher opined, "The veracity of his boasts were often questioned, but his fans did not seem to care."
Following one of his lectures, someone said: "Whether or not all of Capt. Jack's adventures were precisely true, no one in attendance that night really cared."
What became of Captain Jack is also not known. Mention of him in newspapers seems to have ceased after September 1945.