Future CITGO discovered giant Mid-Continent oilfields.
Cities Service Company was established in September 1910 by Henry Latham Doherty as a public utility holding company in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, home of the first commercial Oklahoma oil well. Five years after its founding, Doherty’s company would make its own historic discoveries.
Doherty began by selectively purchasing natural gas producing properties in Kansas and Oklahoma. He acquired distributing companies and linked them to his natural gas supplies. Cities Service Company derived income from the subsidiary corporations’ stock dividends. One natural gas subsidiary drilled exploratory wells in central Kansas.
Occidental Petroleum acquired Cities Service Company in 1982. Stock certificates have only collectible value.
On October 5, 1915, Cities Service’s Wichita Natural Gas Company discovered the 34-square-mile El Dorado oilfield. As oil and natural gas holdings expanded in the Mid-Continent, the company added the Empire Gas & Fuel Company of Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
In 1928, Empire Oil & Refining, the Cities Service subsidiary, discovered the giant Oklahoma City oilfield. Production also came from the Greater Seminole oilfield, discovered earlier near Seminole. Drilled in July 1926, the Fixico No. 1 well revealed the prolific Wilcox sands at 4,073 feet and launched a drilling boom rivaling those in Texas.
Learn more about Oklahoma’s giant oilfield discoveries in Greater Seminole Oil Boom.
Over the next decade more than 60 petroleum reservoirs were found in 1,300 square miles of east-central Oklahoma – and seven were “giants,” producing more than one million barrels of oil each.
A March 1930 well hit a high-pressure formation about 6,500 feet beneath the state capital, Oklahoma City. A geyser of oil erupted — and flowed skyward for 11 days. The Oklahoma City oilfield discovery well soon became an international sensation. Learn more in World Famous Wild Mary Sudik.
Jack & Al’s Cities Service Station in Key West, Florida, in 1965. Photo courtesy Monroe County Public Library, Key West.
Federal court mandates in 1940 (a result of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935) resulted in Cities Service Company’s divestiture of its public utilities.
CITGO Brand
In 1959, the remaining oil and natural gas companies were reformed as Cities Service Oil Company. In 1964, Cities Service changed its marketing brand by introducing the name CITGO — keeping the first syllable of its name and ending with GO to imply power, according to the CITGO website.
Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) has owned CITGO since 1990.
When T. Boone Pickens’ Mesa Petroleum tried a hostile takeover, Cities Service resisted and counter-offered. Gulf Oil Company made a “White Knight” merger offer, but 20 years of litigation ensued. Occidental Petroleum ultimately acquired Cities Service on December 3, 1982.
Under the terms of the purchase merger agreement, Cities Service stockholders were entitled to exchange each Cities Service share for .41 of a share of $15.50 cumulative preferred stock of Occidental and the right to receive one or more zero coupon notes.
A year later, Occidental sold to Southland Corporation all of the refining, marketing and transportation division of Cities Service — as well as the CITGO brand going to Southland, owner of 7-Eleven stores.
Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the national oil company of Venezuela (officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela), purchased 50 percent of CITGO in 1986. The remainder of the company, based in Houston, was acquired by Petróleos de Venezuela in 1990.
By 2023, CITGO operated 38 terminals and a network of six pipelines and three lubricants blending and packaging plants in Lake Charles, Louisiana; Lemont, Illinois; and Corpus Christi, Texas, with combined refining capacity exceeding 800,000 barrels per day.
CITGO at Fenway Park
Oilfields of Dreams — Gassers, Oilers, and Drillers Baseball reports early 20th century petroleum companies fielded community baseball teams in many of the oil and natural gas producing states. With the arrival of opening day in 2024, a new book by David Krell, The Fenway Effect: A Cultural History of the Boston Red Sox, includes the company’s branding history — and the popularity of its red triangle logo.
A former producer at MSNBC, Krell also wrote 1962: Baseball and America in the Time of JFK. His books are available on Amazon Books.
Boston Red Sox Fenway Park T-Shirt officially licensed and sold by Major League Baseball.
Krell examines not only the heritage of the Red Sox, but the role of the team’s home ballpark since 1912. Chapter 15 includes American Oil & Gas Historical Society research focusing on CITGO corporate history and the impact of marketing brands (see Mobil’s High-Flying Trademark and Dinosaur Fever — Sinclair’s Icon).
The University of Nebraska Press published David Krell’s book in 2024.
Home runs at Fenway Park helped national recognition of the former Cities Service Company logo, according to Krell. The history of the ballpark’s CITGO triangle — and earlier Cities Service signs like the green clover “Koolmotor” brand — should be preserved.
With an another 60-foot red CITGO sign at Houston Astros’ Minute Maid Park, the company’s now iconic logo remains part of both baseball and petroleum industry history. For fans of both, an official Boston Red Sox “Citgo Fenway Park Club T-Shirt” on the Major League Baseball website.
The site also offers the “minimalist artwork” similar to the cover of Krell’s book, a 17- inch by 26-inch Red Sox Fenway Park Green Monster print Citgo brand.
Some Cities Service Company stock certificates remain prized by collectors — see Is my Oil Oil Stock worth Anything? Certificates that are perforated or otherwise cancelled have only collectible value. Others have been canceled on the books and the underlying value turned over to state unclaimed property divisions.
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Recommended Reading: The Fenway Effect: A Cultural History of the Boston Red Sox (2024); The fire in the rock: A history of the oil and gas industry in Kansas, 1855-1976
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an annual AOGHS supporter. Help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Cities Service Company.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/stocks/cities-service-company. Last Updated: August 1, 2024. Original Published Date: April 29, 2013.