by Bruce Wells | Jan 8, 2025 | Petroleum History Almanac
The North Texas church once proclaimed as richest in America.
In the fall of 1917 near Ranger, Texas, the cotton-farming town of Merriman was inhabited by “ranchers, farmers, and businessmen struggling to survive an economic slump brought on by severe drought and boll weevil-ravaged cotton fields.”
Everything changed in Eastland County when a wildcat well drilled by Texas & Pacific Coal Company struck oil at Ranger, four miles from Merriman. The J.H. McCleskey No. 1 well produced 1,600 barrels of oil a day.
McCleskey No. 1 cable-tool oil well, the “Roaring Ranger” gusher of 1917, brought an oil boom to Eastland County, Texas, about 100 miles west of Dallas.
The rush to acquire leases that followed the oilfield discovery became legendary among drilling booms, even for Texas, home of the 1901 “Lucas Gusher” on Spindletop Hill at Beaumont.
As drilling continued, yield of the Ranger oilfield led to peak production reaching more than 14 million barrels in 1919. Production from the “Roaring Ranger” well and its giant North Texas oilfield helped win World War I — with a British War Cabinet member declaring, “the Allied cause floated to victory upon a wave of oil.”
Texas & Pacific Coal Company had taken a great risk by leasing acreage around Ranger, but the risk paid off when lease values soared. The exploration company added “oil” to its name, becoming the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company.
“So as we could not worship God on the former acre of ground, we decided to lease it and honor God with the product,” explained Merriman Baptist Church Deacon J.T. Falls. Photo courtesy Robert Vann, “Lone Star Bonanza, the Ranger Oil Boom of 1917-1923.”
The price of the oil company stock jumped from $30 a share to $1,250 a share as a host of landmen, “scanned the landscape to discover any fractions in these holdings. A little school and church, before too small to be seen, now looked like a sky scraper.”
Warren Wagner, driller of the McCleskey discovery well, leased the local school lot and in August 1918 completed a well producing 2,500 barrels of oil a day. Leasing at Merriman Baptist Church proved to be a challenge.
In February, Deacon J.T. Falls complained drilling new wells, “ran us out, as all of the land around our acre was leased, producing wells being brought in so near the house we were compelled to abandon the church because of the gas fumes and noisy machinery.”
Falls added that, “So as we could not worship God on the former acre of ground, we decided to lease it and honor God with the product.”
Deacon J.T. Falls (second from left) was not amused when the Associated Press reported in 1919 that his church had refused a million dollars for the lease of the cemetery.
A Texas Historical Commission marker erected in 1999 described when the well on the church’s lease began producing oil, earning the congregation a royalty of between $300 and $400 a day. Merriman Baptist Church, “kept a small amount for operating expenses and gave the rest to various Baptist organizations and charities.”
However, drilling in the church graveyard was a different matter. As oil production continued to soar in North Texas, the congregants of Merriman Baptist Church initially resisted one drilling drilling site. As a January 18, 1919, article in the New York Times noted in its headline, “CHURCH MADE RICH BY OIL; Refuses $1,000,000 for Right to Develop Wells in Graveyard.”
Respecting the Dead
At Merriman’s church cemetery, a less seen historical marker erected in 1993 explains the drilling boom’s fierce competition to find property without a well already on it: “Oil speculators reportedly offered members of the Merriman Baptist Church a large sum of money to lease the cemetery grounds for drilling.”
Near Ranger in Eastland County, Texas Historical Commission markers erected in 1993 (left) and 1999 explaining how members of the Merriman Baptist Church shared their wealth from petroleum royalties. Photos courtesy the Historical Marker Database.
When local newspapers reported the church had refused an offer of $1 million, the Associated Press picked it up and newspapers from New York to San Francisco ran the story. Literary Digest even featured, “the Texas Mammon of Righteousness” with a photograph of the “The Congregation That Refuses A Million.”
Deacon J.T. Falls was not amused. “A great many clippings have been sent to us from many secular papers to the effect that we as a church have refused a million dollars for the lease of the cemetery. We do not know how such a statement started,” the deacon opined.
“The cemetery does not belong to the church. It was here long before the church was. We could not lease it if we would and we would not if we could,” the cleric added.
“If any person’s or company’s heart has become so congealed as to want to drill for oil in this cemetery, they could not – for the dead could not sign a lease and no living person has any right to do so,” Falls proclaimed.
The church deacon concluded with an ominous admonition to potential drillers, “Those that have friends buried here have the right and the will to protect the graves and any person attempting to trespass will assume a great risk.”
A 1918 article noted a “Merriman school house” oil well drilled to 3,200 feet in record time for North Central Texas.
Roaring Ranger’s oil production dropped precipitously because of dwindling reservoir pressures brought on by unconstrained drilling. Many exploration and production companies failed (including fraudulent ones like Hog Creek Carruth Oil Company).
In the decades since the McCleskey No. 1 well, advancements in horizontal drilling technology have presented more legal challenges to mineral rights of the interred, according to Zack Callarman of Texas Wesleyan School of Law.
Callarman wrote an award-winning analysis of laws concerning drilling to extract oil and natural gas underneath cemeteries. “Seven Thousand Feet Under: Does Drilling Disturb the Dead? Or Does Drilling Underneath the Dead Disturb the Living?” was published in the Real Estate Law Journal in 2014.
Despite yet another North Texas oilfield discovery at Desdemona, by 1920 the Eastland County drilling boom was over. The faithful still gather at Merriman Baptist Church every Sunday.
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Recommended Reading: Early Texas Oil: A Photographic History, 1866-1936
(2000);Texas Oil and Gas, Postcard History (2013);Wildcatters: Texas Independent Oilmen
(1984). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Oil Riches of Merriman Baptist Church.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/oil-riches-of-merriman-baptist-church. Last Updated: January 12, 2025. Original Published Date: January 18, 2019.
by Bruce Wells | Dec 13, 2024 | Petroleum History Almanac
As the U.S. petroleum industry expanded following the January 1901 “Lucas Gusher” at Spindletop Hill in Texas, service company pioneers like Carl Baker and Howard Hughes brought new technologies to oilfields.
Baker Oil Tools and Hughes Tools specialized in maximizing petroleum production, as did oilfield service company competitors Schlumberger, a French company founded in 1926, and Halliburton, which began in 1919 as a well-cementing company.
R.C. “Carl” Baker Sr.
Baker Oil Tool Company (later Baker International) had been founded by Reuben Carlton “Carl” Baker Sr., who among other inventions patented a cable-tool drill bit in 1903 after founding the Coalinga Oil Company in Coalinga, California.
A 1919 portrait of Baker Tools Company founder R.C. “Carl” Baker (1872 – 1957).
The oil wells Carl Baker had drilled near Coalinga encountered hard rock formations that caused problems with casing, so he developed an offset cable-tool bit allowing him to drill a hole larger than the casing. He also patented a “Gas Trap for Oil Wells” in 1908, a “Pump-Plunger” in 1914, and a “Shoe Guide for Well Casings” in 1920.
Coalinga was “every inch a boom town and Mr. Baker would become a major player in the town’s growth,” according to the now closed R.C. Baker Memorial Museum. He also organized several small oil companies and the local power company, and established a bank.
After drilling wells in the Kern River oilfield, Baker added to his technological innovations on July 16, 1907, when he was awarded a patent for his Well Casing Shoe (No. 860,115), a device ensuring uninterrupted flow of oil through a well. His invention revolutionized oilfield production.
R.C. “Carl” Baker standing next to Baker Casing Shoes in 1914. Photo courtesy the now closed R.C. Baker Memorial Museum.
In 1913, Baker organized the Baker Casing Shoe Company (renamed Baker Tools two years later). He opened his first manufacturing plant in Coalinga.
When Baker Tools headquarters moved to Los Angeles in the 1930s, the building remained a company machine shop. It was donated by Baker to Coalinga in 1959. Two years later, the original machine shop and office of Baker Casing Shoe reopened as the R.C. Baker Memorial Museum.
By the time Carl Baker Sr. died in 1957 at age 85, he had been awarded more than 150 U.S. patents in his lifetime. “Though Mr. Baker never advanced beyond the third grade, he possessed an incredible understanding of mechanical and hydraulic systems,” reported the former Coalinga museum.
Baker Tools became Baker International in 1976 and Baker Hughes after the 1987 merger with Hughes Tool Company.
The Houston manufacturing operations of Sharp-Hughes Tool at 2nd and Girard Streets in 1915. Today, the site is on the campus of University of Houston–Downtown. Photo courtesy Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public Library.
Howard R. Hughes Sr.
The Hughes Tool Company began in 1908 as the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company founded by Walter B. Sharp and Howard R. Hughes, Sr.
“Fishtail” rotary drill bits became obsolete in 1909 when the two inventors introduced a dual-cone roller bit. They created a bit “designed to enable rotary drilling in harder, deeper formations than was possible with earlier fishtail bits,” according to a Hughes historian. Secret tests took place on a drilling rig at Goose Creek, south of Houston.
“In the early morning hours of June 1, 1909, Howard Hughes Sr. packed a secret invention into the trunk of his car and drove off into the Texas plains,” noted Gwen Wright of History Detectives in 2006. The drilling site was near Galveston Bay. Rotary drilling “fishtail ” bits of the time were “nearly worthless when they hit hard rock.”
The new technology would soon bring faster and deeper drilling worldwide, helping to find previously unreachable oil and natural gas reserves. The dual-cone bit also created many Texas millionaires, explained Don Clutterbuck, one of the PBS show’s sources.
“When the Hughes twin-cones hit hard rock, they kept turning, their dozens of sharp teeth (166 on each cone) grinding through the hard stone,” he added.
Although several inventors tried to develop better rotary drill bit technologies, Sharp-Hughes Tool Company was the first to bring it to American oilfields. Drilling times fell dramatically, saving petroleum companies huge amounts of money.
Howard Hughes Sr. (1869 – 1924), received a 1901 patent for a dual-cone drill bit that could crush hard rock.
The Society of Petroleum Engineers has noted that about the same time Hughes developed his bit, Granville A. Humason of Shreveport, Louisiana, patented the first cross-roller rock bit, the forerunner of the Reed cross-roller bit.
Biographers have noted that Hughes met Granville Humason in a Shreveport bar, where Humason sold his roller bit rights to Hughes for $150. The University of Texas Center for American History collection includes a 1951 recording of Humason’s recollections of that chance meeting. He recalled spending $50 of his sale proceeds at the bar during the balance of the evening.
After Sharp died in 1912, his widow Estelle Sharp sold her 50 percent share in the company to Hughes. It became Hughes Tool in 1915. Despite legal action between Hughes Tool and the Reed Roller Bit Company that occurred in the late 1920s, Hughes prevailed – and his oilfield service company prospered.
By 1934, Hughes Tool engineers design and patented the three-cone roller bit, an enduring design that remains much the same today. Hughes’ exclusive patent lasted until 1951, which allowed his Texas company to grow worldwide. More innovations (and mergers) would follow.
A February 1914 advertisement for the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company in Fuel Oil Journal.
Frank Christensen and George Christensen had developed the earliest diamond bit in 1941 and introduced diamond bits to oilfields in 1946, beginning with the Rangley field of Colorado. The long-lasting tungsten carbide tooth came into use in the early 1950s.
After Baker International acquired Hughes Tool Company in 1987, Baker Hughes acquired the Eastman Christensen Company three years later. Eastman was a world leader in directional drilling.
When Howard Hughes Sr. died in 1924, he left three-quarters of his company to Howard Hughes Jr., then a student at Rice University. The younger Hughes added to the success of Hughes Tool while becoming one of the richest men in the world. His many legacies include founding Hughes Aircraft Company and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Learn more in Making Hole – Drilling Technology.
Oilfield Service Competition
A major competitor for any energy service company, today’s Schlumberger Limited can trace its roots to Caen, France. In 1912, brothers Conrad and Marcel began making geophysical measurements that recorded a map of equipotential curves (similar to contour lines on a map). Using very basic equipment, their field experiments led to invention of a downhole electronic “logging tool” in 1927.
After developing an electrical four-probe surface approach for mineral exploration, the brothers lowered another electric tool into a well. They recorded a single lateral-resistivity curve at fixed points in the well’s borehole and graphically plotted the results against depth – creating first electric well log of geologic formations.
Meanwhile another service company in Oklahoma, the Reda Pump Company had been founded by Armais Arutunoff, a close friend of Frank Phillips. By 1938, an estimated two percent of all the oil produced in the United States with artificial lift, was lifted by an Arutunoff pump.
Learn more in Inventing the Electric Submersible Pump (also see All Pumped Up – Oilfield Technology).
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Recommended Reading: History Of Oil Well Drilling
(2007); Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2024 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Carl Baker and Howard Hughes.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/carl-baker-howard-hughes. Last Updated: December 14, 2024. Original Published Date: December 17, 2017.
by Bruce Wells | Dec 10, 2024 | Petroleum History Almanac
Grandfather scouted Philadelphia streets for earliest gas station locations.
Seeking to preserve heirlooms, families often turn to local museums, colleges, and historical societies for help. When related to petroleum business careers, the American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) website maintains updated links to special resources, community oil and gas museums, and some help for researching old oil company stock certificates.
A petroleum industry artifact on the AOGHS Oil & Gas Families page has its own connection with refining history — and is an heirloom in search of an permanent home.
“I have an old Atlantic Richfield brochure that I’d be glad to donate to any interested party,” Jane Benner noted in a June 2022 email to AOGHS. “My grandfather (G.E. Cooper) and his brother (Albert Cooper) as well as a future brother-in-law (W.R. Pierce) are pictured among the staff salesmen and administrators. The handwriting identifying them is that of my grand mother, Eleanor Cooper Benner.”
The Atlantic Connecting Rod
Seeking advice for locating a suitable museum or archive, Benner attached the cover and interior photos from her family’s 1921 issue of “The Atlantic Connect Rod” (perhaps an employee publication of the Atlantic Refining Company). The Philadelphia-based venture incorporated in 1870 to refine lamp kerosene and other petroleum products.
Jane Benner’s grandfather George Edward Cooper stands among other Atlantic Refining Company salesmen and administrators in 1921.
Taken over by John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust by the end of the 20th century, Atlantic Refining Company returned as an independent company following the U.S. Supreme Court’s dissolution of the monopoly in 1911.
With its South Philadelphia refinery among the largest in the United States, in 1966 Atlantic Refining merged with Richfield Oil Corporation, creating the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO). Two years later, the new major oil company made the first oil discovery in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, leading to construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in the mid-1970s.
Early Philly Gas Stations
“All I know of my grandfather’s work is that he was responsible for identifying locations to open gas stations in Philadelphia (right side of the road, heading out of town, as my mother told me). He died in 1927, so likely his work there was during the 1910s and 1920s,” Benner explained.
The Gulf Refining Company had opened America’s first gas station in Pittsburgh in late 1913, and three years later, the company’s “Good Gulf Gasoline” also went on sale in West Philadelphia.
The Atlantic Refining publication features Albert Cooper, brother of Jane Benner’s grandfather, as well as a future brother-in-law (W. R. Pierce). The handwriting identifying them is that of her mother, Eleanor Cooper Benner.
The Gulf station opening at 33rd and Chestnut streets was the start of the “Battle for Gasadelphia,” according to PhillyHistory. In April 1916, Gulf added a second station at at Broad Street and Hunting Park Avenue.
“How did the competition respond? The Philadelphia and Pittsburgh-based Atlantic Refining Company formed a committee to brainstorm,” the 2013 blog noted. Gulf Refining’s first station used a distinctive pagoda style architecture. More designs would emerge to attract consumers.
Both refining companies used service station location and architecture to explore the earliest combinations of integrating functionalism with new or classical designs, noted Keith A. Sculle in his 2004 article, “Atlantic Refining Company’s Monumental Service Stations in Philadelphia, 1917-1919,” published in the Journal of American & Comparative Cultures (see Wiley Online Library).
Preserving Oil History
To find a home for her family’s Atlantic Refining artifact, Benner has been contacting Pennsylvania museums while researching more about the company and her grandfather’s career. She hopes her small but meaningful family heirloom will be preserved as part of America’s petroleum history.
“The booklet is remarkably informative about the company and their sales objectives at that time, including locations and photos of the early stations,” Benner noted in her email to AOGHS. “It’s fine to post my family story, as sparse as it is,” concluded the granddaughter of G.E. Cooper.
Benner added that she planned on contacting curators and archivists at oil museums, “in case anyone is interested.”
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Recommended Reading: An Illustrated Guide to Gas Pumps
(2008). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Preserving a 1921 Atlantic Refining Publication.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/laviness-family-oilfield-history. Last Updated: July 12, 2022. Original Published Date: July 12, 2022.
by Bruce Wells | Aug 20, 2024 | Petroleum History Almanac
Indiana researcher’s “Informal History Notes” help preserve U.S. petroleum company legacies.
James Hinds of Columbus, Indiana, originally completed his extensively researched history of the Indian Refining Company in November 2003. His work documented the early histories of Havoline Motor Oil (through 1962) and the Texas Company, the future Texaco (through 1985).
“Emphasis was placed on Indian Refining Company and on an accurate account of Havoline’s early days,” Hinds noted about his extensively researched “Informal History Notes” emailed to the American Oil & Gas Historical Society in 2023. He added, “Please feel free to use (or not use) as you see fit.”
James Hinds Informal History Notes
INDIAN REFINING COMPANY, INCORPORATED
HAVOLINE Motor Oil (through 1962)
The Texas Company / Texaco Inc. (through 1985)
Compiled by Jim Hinds, Columbus, Indiana
November 2003
In Memory of R. R. Hinds, Distributor
FOREWORD
1. These notes consist of information which I (with appreciable assistance) have been able to piece together on the corporate history of INDIAN REFINING COMPANY, INCORPORATED, the origins of HAVOLINE Motor Oil, and (to a lesser extent) the history of The Texas Company / Texaco Inc. Emphasis was placed on INDIAN REFINING COMPANY, and on an accurate account of HAVOLINE’s early days, since surprisingly little such information (especially on the “old INDIAN”) is readily available elsewhere. They are by no means a comprehensive history of The Texas Company / Texaco Inc. but only attempt to cover those events which I believe were most relevant to the histories of INDIAN REFINING COMPANY and HAVOLINE Motor Oil.
2. I am aware that these notes conflict, in some details, with “The Texaco Story – The First Fifty Years 1902-1952” (Marquis James, The Texas Company, 1953) which has come to be viewed as the “official history” of The Texas Company. Based on information which I have verified through multiple, independent sources, however, it appears that portions of the material with which Mr. James was given to work were either erroneous or misinterpreted.
3. It is recognized that “The Texas Company”, “TEXACO”, “HAVOLINE”, “INDIAN”, “FIRE-CHIEF”, and “Sky Chief” are or were registered trademarks of Texaco Inc. (a subsidiary of ChevronTexaco Corporation) or of its antecedents. They are used here for informational and historical research purposes, only. These notes are in no way an official publication of Texaco Inc. nor of ChevronTexaco Corporation.
A Texaco station was among the 2012 indoor exhibits featured at the National Route 66 Museum in Elk City, Oklahoma. Photo by Bruce Wells.
Chronology
28 March 1901 – The Texas Fuel Company is among some 200 companies organized in the days immediately following the famed oil strike at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, Texas. The company establishes an office in Beaumont.
4 October 1901 – John F. Havemeyer of Yonkers, New York incorporates The Havemeyer Oil Company under the laws of that state, for purposes (as detailed on its certificate of incorporation) related to “lubricating and all other oils of every kind and nature” (probably referring to whale oil, other animal renderings, and – possibly – to various seed oils, in addition to petroleum).
2 January 1902 – The Texas Fuel Company begins business.
7 April 1902 – The Texas Fuel Company becomes The Texas Company and incorporates under the laws of the State of Texas.
1 January 1903 – “TEXACO” (having originated as the cable address of The Texas Company) is first used as a product name.
13 November 1903 – The Texas Company begins operations at its first refinery – Port Arthur [Texas] Works
14 November 1904 – Although its plant is physically located in the tiny northwestern-Indiana hamlet of Asphaltum, and 99.8% of its common and 100% of its preferred stock are listed in the name of 23-year-old Richmond M. Levering (a Lafayette, Indiana native currently residing in Chicago, Illinois), Indian Asphalt Company incorporates under the laws of the State of Maine. (While not recorded, it is speculated that the name “Indian” is an allusion to Indiana – meaning land or place “of Indians”.)
1904 – The Havemeyer Oil Company — having developed a unique cold-filtration process and blending package for oils — coins, and first uses, the name “HAVOLINE.”
1905 – Realizing that the Jasper County, Indiana oil field which it originally intended to exploit is effectively depleted, Indian Asphalt Company is persuaded (in “an extensive campaign by the [Georgetown] Board of Trade”) to move its offices and plant to Georgetown, Kentucky.
1 May 1906 – Growing quickly in both size and scope, Indian Asphalt Company changes its name to INDIAN REFINING COMPANY. Its plant is upgraded to “refinery” status and its product line expanded to include paraffin wax, paint, “Sunset Engine Oil”, “Bull Dog Compound”, and “Blue Grass Axle Grease” in addition to asphalt. Richmond M. Levering becomes the first president of the renamed company and is soon joined in business by his father and mentor – Indiana banker, financier, and entrepreneur J. Mortimer Levering – who becomes the company’s secretary.
8 December 1906 – “HAVOLINE” is registered as a trademark of The Havemeyer Oil Company for use as a brand name on oils (not strictly motor oil) and greases.
5 January 1907 – Havoline Oil Company (a “spin-off” of The Havemeyer Oil Company) is incorporporated under the laws of State of New York. As with The Havemeyer Oil Company, its stated purposes include production, purchase, refining, sales, and other dealings involving “animal” oils and fats as well as “mineral” (i.e. petroleum) oils.
1907 – Construction of INDIAN REFINING COMPANY’s Lawrenceville, Illinois refinery is completed and the refinery begins operation.
1908 – Although continuing to operate its Georgetown refinery, INDIAN REFINING COMPANY relocates its offices to Cincinnati, Ohio. The company also begins operation of a small refinery near East St. Louis, Illinois.
20 May 1909 – As part of a program of rapid expansion, INDIAN REFINING COMPANY incorporates under the laws of the State of New York and purchases The Havemeyer Oil Company, Havoline Oil Company, and the by-now established “HAVOLINE” name (which is then registered as a trademark of INDIAN REFINING COMPANY as a brand name for lubricating oils – again, not strictly motor oil).
1909 – Production of HAVOLINE products at the Lawrenceville refinery begins.
1 December 1909 – Following a brief illness, J. Mortimer Levering (secretary of INDIAN REFINING COMPANY) passes away.
17 December 1909 – The Havemeyer Oil Company is dissolved.
2 September 1910 – INDIAN REFINING COMPANY (Maine) is chartered to do business in the State of Louisiana and begins operating a refinery in New Orleans.
1909-1911 – Also included in this period of INDIAN REFINING COMPANY’s expansion are the purchases of the Bridgeport Oil Company (Bridgeport, Connecticut), the Record Oil Refining Company (Newark, New Jersey), a small refinery in Jersey City, New Jersey, and control of a large storage station at Kearny, New Jersey. The company launches a program aimed at making a full-scale entry into the European market.
16 March 1911 – Primarily in anticipation of expanding to the west coast, INDIAN REFINING COMPANY OF CALIFORNIA is created (and is incorporated under the laws of the State of New Jersey).
20 March 1911 – INDIAN REFINING COMPANY (New York) changes its name to INDIAN REFINING COMPANY OF NEW YORK and becomes the principal operating subsidiary of INDIAN REFINING COMPANY (Maine). The parent company’s main offices are moved from Cincinnati to New York City. Although its offices are moved, the company retains its close ties to the Cincinnati business community (which have existed since its inception as the Indian Asphalt Company) for many years. Its stock continues to be traded on the Cincinnati Stock Exchange and its board of directors includes (at various times) such well-known Cincinnati businessmen as William C. Procter, M. C. Fleischman, Lazard Kahn, and Bernard Kroger.
17 September – 6 November 1911 HAVOLINE Motor Oil lubricates the 28-horsepower engine of the first airplane to fly across the United States. Piloted by Calbraith Perry (“Cal”) Rodgers, the Wright EX bi-plane publicizes the new soft drink “Vin Fiz”, after which the the plane is named.
1 April 1912 – INDIAN REFINING COMPANY OF LOUISIANA incorporates under the laws of the
State of Louisiana.
December 1913 – January 1914 In conjunction with a sweeping organizational and financial re- structuring, INDIAN REFINING COMPANY (Maine) applies for and receives “authority to do business” in the States of New York and California. It assumes those functions formerly performed by INDIAN REFINING COMPANY OF NEW YORK. The planned expansion to the far-West, however, is effectively cancelled and INDIAN REFINING COMPANY OF CALIFORNIA is dissolved.
1915 – INDIAN REFINING COMPANY closes its Georgetown, East St. Louis, and Jersey City refineries and abandons the company’s European venture (which has proven to be a severe financial drain due largely the First World War).
1916 – INDIAN REFINING COMPANY (Maine)’s president, Richmond M. Levering, resigns, as do several other senior officers of the company.
December 1918 – January 1919 In yet another reorganization, INDIAN REFINING COMPANY OF NEW YORK, INDIAN REFINING COMPANY OF LOUISIANA, Havoline Oil Company, the Record Oil Refining Company, and the Bridgeport Oil Company – all subsidiaries of INDIAN REFINING COMPANY (Maine) (hereafter referred to simply as INDIAN REFINING COMPANY) – are dissolved. The New Orleans plant is closed.
1920 – INDIAN REFINING COMPANY purchases the capital stock of the Central Refining Company, which is located immediately north of the Lawrenceville refinery. The Central refinery facilities are ultimately reconfigured for lubricants manufacture.
1923 – The general offices of INDIAN REFINING COMPANY are moved from New York City to Lawrenceville.
1924 – INDIAN REFINING COMPANY sells its remaining producing properties (consisting mainly of wells and leases in Illinois and Ohio) to the Ohio Oil Company (later to become the Marathon Oil Company).
1924 – The globes for INDIAN gasoline pumps are redesigned: a red “ball” with “INDIAN” arched above and “GAS” arched below (both in blue letters) on a white globe, replaces the reddish-brown and black “running Indian” design which was previously used. (One-piece globes also include “HAVOLINE”, in letters, vertically on each side.)
1924-1925 – Wishing to even more closely associate the two names, INDIAN REFINING COMPANY adopts a totally re-designed “HAVOLINE” trademark and virtually identical “INDIAN GAS” logo, both of which prominently feature the red-white-and-blue “ball” which had first been incorporated into the “HAVOLINE” logo in 1922. A “dot” is added to the middle of the “D” and above the second “I” in the word “INDIAN” (replicating the dots within the “O” and above the “I” in “HAVOLINE”). “INDIAN HI-TEST” Gasoline (made identifiable by red dye) is introduced on a limited basis.
1926 – The subsidiary Indian Pipe Line Corporation is sold to the Illinois Pipe Line Company.
May 1926 – The Texas Company introduces “New and Better TEXACO Gasoline”.
26 August 1926 – The Texas Corporation is incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware and, by exchange of shares, acquires substantially all outstanding stock of The Texas Company (Texas).
20 April 1927 – The Texas Company incorporates (under the laws of the State of Delaware) as the principal operating subsidiary of The Texas Corporation. All assets of The Texas Company (Texas) are transferred to The Texas Company (Delaware) and The Texas Company (Texas) is dissolved. The Texas Corporation becomes the “parent company” of the by-now numerous “Texas Company” entities and other subsidiaries.
2 March 1928 – The Texas Corporation acquires the California Petroleum Corporation, which is reorganized as The Texas Company (California).
16 August 1929 – Its chemists and engineers (led by Dr. Francis X. Govers) having perfected a revolutionary solvent-dewaxing process, INDIAN REFINING COMPANY introduces “HAVOLINE WAXFREE” motor oil, replacing “HAVOLINE –the power oil” (which had, early in the 1920’s, supplanted “HAVOLINE It Makes a Difference”). (An economy “Blended HAVOLINE” is also offered, primarily in bulk.)
By 1930 “HAVOLINE” sales (both nation-wide and overseas) not only remain strong but grow, markedly, following the introduction of “HAVOLINE WAXFREE”. But, while it had once been in the retail gasoline, kerosene, and fuel oil markets (to varying extents) in over 25 states, the growing effects of the Depression, increasing difficulty in competing with the larger oil companies, the lack of reliable sources of crude, and (especially) the huge amount of money spent in developing the Govers solvent-dewaxing process, combine to force INDIAN REFINING COMPANY to retrench and restrict such marketing to Indiana,
Michigan, eastern Illinois, northern Kentucky, and western Ohio. (Within this limited area, however, the company still has a well-developed and efficient distribution and sales network. Into the latter 1920’s, for example, “INDIAN” accounts for some 20% of all gasoline sales in Indiana.)
1930 – The Texas Corporation introduces “TEXACO Ethyl Gasoline” (which is renamed “FIRE-CHIEF Ethyl” 15 April 1932).
August 1930 INDIAN REFINING COMPANY introduces a higher-octane “regular” gasoline which is made identifiable by green dye and which is dubbed “INDIAN Green-Lite” Gasoline.
14 January 1931 – The Texas Corporation gains controlling interest in INDIAN REFINING COMPANY, including the rights to HAVOLINE Motor Oil (and the all-important Govers solvent-dewaxing process) and INDIAN REFINING COMPANY’s
remaining active and inactive subsidiaries (the Indian Realty Corporation, the Central Refining Company, and the Havoline Oil Company of Canada, Ltd.). This also gives The Texas Corporation an established distribution and sales network
and entry into the retail gasoline market in Indiana, Michigan, eastern Illinois, northern Kentucky, and western Ohio – areas in which it has not previously had any significant presence. (The Texas Corporation limits use of the “HAVOLINE” name to motor oil, only; it is not again used on products other than motor oil until the mid-1990’s)
14 January 1931 – 15 March 1943 INDIAN REFINING COMPANY continues in operation as an “affiliate” of The Texas Corporation, although all sales outlets and company facilities and equipment are re-badged as “TEXACO.” Production of “TEXACO” gasolines begins at the Lawrenceville refinery. An “INDIAN”-brand gasoline becomes a “sub-regular” (priced below “TEXACO” gasolines) and is added to the product line at most outlets, nation-wide. Production of “INDIAN” gasoline is included at other Texas Corporation refineries. (It is during this period that “INDIAN” pumps bear a distinctive plate – either round or rectangular – featuring an art deco Indian beadwork design.) National marketing and sales offices for INDIAN REFINING COMPANY are opened in Indianapolis, Indiana.
15 April 1932 – “TEXACO FIRE-CHIEF Gasoline” is introduced.
1934 – Furfural solvent-extraction (developed by The Texas Corporation) is combined with the Govers solvent-dewaxing process in the manufacture of “HAVOLINE WAXFREE”.
1935 – Production of “HAVOLINE WAXFREE” at Port Arthur Works is begun in order to supplement the output of the Lawrenceville refinery.
May 1936 – “New TEXACO Motor Oil” (also produced with the solvent-dewaxing/furfural solvent-extraction process but with a totally different and less-expensive formulation than that of HAVOLINE) is introduced.
1938 – “HAVOLINE – DISTILLED AND INSULATED” is introduced.
October 1938 – “TEXACO Sky Chief Gasoline” is introduced (replacing “FIRE-CHIEF Ethyl”).
1 November 1941 – The Texas Company (California) is instructed to transfer all assets to The Texas Company (Delaware) and is then dissolved. The Texas Corporation “merges itself into” The Texas Company (Delaware). The Texas Company (Delaware) — hereafter referred to simply as “The Texas Company” — becomes the “parent company”.
15 March 1943 – INDIAN REFINING COMPANY’s stockholders transfer all of the company’s property and assets to The Texas Company in exchange for shares of that company’s stock. The Texas Company discontinues “INDIAN” gasoline and all other use in trade of the INDIAN name.
24 April 1943 – An agreement is implemented under which The Texas Company (partially by what amounts to cash purchase but, primarily, through exchange of shares) secures all INDIAN REFINING COMPANY stock, which is then cancelled. (INDIAN REFINING COMPANY, INCORPORATED is thus liquidated and is placed in “inactive corporation” status by the State of Maine (under whose laws it was incorporated) 31 December 1943.)
30 April 1943 – The Texas Company creates a second “Indian Refining Company”, which it incorporates under the laws of the State of Delaware – a “shell” company which it lists as an inactive subsidiary.
1946 – “New and Improved HAVOLINE” is introduced.
1950 – “Custom-Made HAVOLINE” is introduced.
Early 1950’s Lubricants production at the Lawrenceville refinery is discontinued; the lubricants production facility is dismantled and portions of that area of the property are disposed of.
1953 – “Advanced Custom-Made HAVOLINE” is introduced.
1955 – “Advanced Custom-Made HAVOLINE Special 10W-30” is introduced.
26 August 1958 – INDIAN REFINING COMPANY, INCORPORATED is officially dissolved by the State of Maine.
1 May 1959 – The Texas Company becomes Texaco Inc.
1962 – New HAVOLINE cans are introduced. The “TEXACO” trademark replaces the INDIAN REFINING COMPANY-era red-white-and-blue “ball” in a totally re-designed “HAVOLINE” logo.
1980 – For numerous reasons (among them the expense of needed technological upgrades), the prospects for the Lawrenceville refinery’s future profitability have eroded significantly. Unable to establish what might be a viable alternative means of supplying product to the area, Texaco Inc. makes the decision to withdraw from the retail gasoline market in that portion of the upper Midwest traditionally serviced by Lawrenceville.
1982 – The marking of all 55-gallon TEXACO drums becomes black with a red band. TEXACO oil drums had, historically, been gray with a green band with two exceptions. Drums of multi-grade (SAE 10W-30 and 10W-40) HAVOLINE Motor Oil were painted dark blue with a gold band and “head”. Those of “straight-grade” HAVOLINE were painted dark blue with a white band and head – Texaco Inc.’s last remaining use of The Havemeyer Oil Company’s original colors.
March 1985 – The diminution of reasonably-accessible sources of suitable crude, the ever- increasing costs of compliance with governmental regulations, and other business considerations combine to make continued operation of the Lawrenceville refinery economically unfeasible. Texaco Refining and Marketing Inc. (a recently-formed subsidiary of Texaco Inc.) completes the withdrawal from the retail and wholesale motor fuels market in a contiguous area spanning Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and
Wisconsin. The Lawrenceville refinery is closed.
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Recommended Reading: The Texaco Story: The First Fifty Years, 1902-1952
(2012). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and 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: “Histories of Indian Refining, Havoline, and Texaco.” Author: James Hinds. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/histories-of-indian-refining-havoline-and-texaco Last Updated: August 19, 2024. Original Published Date: June 21, 2023.
