August 19, 2020 – Oil & Gas History News, Vol. 1, No. 8
Oil & Gas History News
Welcome to our August newsletter, and thank you for subscribing. The pandemic continues to bring more people than ever online, especially as an unprecedented school year struggles to begin. The American Oil & Gas Historical Society is sharing energy education research and articles during this time of social distancing. We are adding new and updated posts to the website, which is undergoing improvements, thanks to supporting members.
This Week in Petroleum History Monthly Update
Links to summaries from five weeks of U.S. oil and natural gas history, including new technologies, oilfield discoveries, petroleum products, and pioneers.
August 17, 1785 – Oil Discovered Floating on Pennsylvania Creek
Two years after the end of the Revolutionary War, oil was reported floating on a creek in northwestern Pennsylvania. “Oil Creek has taken its name from an oil or bituminous matter being found floating on its surface,” noted a report by Army Gen. William Irvine. His report of the natural oil seeps would lead to the first U.S. oil well in 1859…MORE
August 10, 1909 – Hughes patents Dual-Cone Roller Bit
“Fishtail” drill bits became obsolete after Howard Hughes Sr. of Houston, Texas, patented a roller bit consisting of two rotating cones. By pulverizing hard rock, his bit led to drilling faster and deeper. Hughes and business associate Walter Sharp established the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company to manufacture the new bit…MORE
August 3, 1769 – La Brea Asphalt (Not Tar) Pits discovered
The La Brea, “the tar,” pits were discovered during a Spanish expedition on the West Coast. “We debated whether this substance, which flows melted from underneath the earth, could occasion so many earthquakes,” noted a Franciscan friar. Commonly called tar pits, the sticky pools between modern Beverly Hills and downtown L.A. are actually comprised of natural asphalt, also known as bitumen…MORE
July 27, 1918 – Standard Oil of New York launches Concrete Oil Tanker
The Socony, America’s first concrete vessel designed to carry oil, launched from its shipyard at Flushing Bay, New York. Built for the Standard Oil Company of New York, the barge was 98-feet long with a 32-foot beam and carried oil in six center and two wing compartments, “oil-proofed by a special process,” according to Cement and Engineering News…MORE
July 20, 1920 – Texas Company reveals Permian Basin
The first commercial well of the Permian Basin produced oil from a depth of 2,750 feet on land owned by William Abrams, an official of the Texas & Pacific Railway. Later “shot” with nitroglycerin by the Texas Company (the future Texaco), the W.H. Abrams No. 1 well today is part of the 75,000-square-mile Permian Basin…MORE
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About 450 million years ago, a meteor struck north-central Oklahoma, creating an impact crater – an astrobleme – eight miles wide. Hidden beneath 9,000 feet of sediment, an oilfield discovery at the crater in 1991 attracted worldwide attention of petroleum companies.
“The Ames Astrobleme is one of the most remarkable and studied geological features in the world because of its economic significance,” noted independent producer Lew Ward from nearby Enid in 2007. Learn more in Ames Astrobleme Museum.
Energy Education Articles
Updated editorial content on the American Oil & Gas Historical Society website includes these articles:
It was a foggy summer morning in 1927 as eight airplanes prepared for takeoff before a crowd of more than 50,000 at the Oakland Airport in California. Aviation history was about to be made with a 2,400-mile air race to Honolulu. High-octane gasoline refined by Phillips Petroleum Company powered the “Woolaroc” monoplane to victory in the record-setting but deadly air race. See Flight of the Woolaroc.
“The World’s Wonder Oil Pool” discovery in 1918 on a small farm along the Red River in Texas launched a drilling boom that would bring prosperity — and inspire a Hollywood movie starring Clark Gable, who was a teenager working in Oklahoma oilfields. Two decades later, he would star in “Boom Town,” a 1940 MGM movie inspired by the Burkburnett oilfield discovery. See Boom Town Burkburnett.
In addition to the above articles, a recent AOGHS website posting features Ray Sorenson, a petroleum geologist who has researched first oil sightings in the United States, Canada, and many parts of the world. Sources cited in the ongoing Exploring Earliest Signs of Oil would add up to 11 feet of shelf space!
Please share our latest newsletter. Like many small, educational organizations, the 2020 pandemic has put a financial strain on this historical society. We need your help to tell the many stories of petroleum history.
— Bruce Wells
“Any survey of the natural resources used as sources of energy must include a discussion about the importance of oil, the lifeblood of all industrialized nations.” — Daniel Yergin, bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize
June 17, 2020 – Oil & Gas History News, Vol. 1, No. 6
Oil & Gas History News
Thank you for taking time to read this month’s American Oil & Gas Historical Society summary of petroleum history during these extraordinary times. Please forward articles from This Week in Petroleum History to your friends and consider becoming a supporting member. Individual donations help the society add more articles, maintain the website, and expand our historical database for educators, students, researchers — and you.
Monthly Highlights from “This Week in Petroleum History”
Links to summaries from four weeks of U.S. oil and natural gas history, including new technologies, oilfield discoveries, petroleum products, and pioneers.
June 15, 1954 – Launch of First Mobile Offshore Rig
The barge drilling platform Mr. Charlie left its Louisiana shipyard and went to work for Shell Oil Company in the East Bay field near the mouth of the Mississippi River. Navy veteran Alden “Doc” LaBorde, a marine superintendent for Kerr-McGee Company, designed this first transportable, submersible drilling rig…
June 9, 1894 – Water Well finds Oil in Corsicana, Texas
A contractor hired by the town of Corsicana to drill a water well on 12th Street found oil instead, launching the first Texas oil boom seven years before the more famous Spindletop gusher. Although the discovery would bring great prosperity, the city paid the drilling contractor only half his $1,000 fee. The agreement had been for drilling a water well…
June 4, 1872 – Robert Chesebrough invents Petroleum Jelly
A young chemist living in New York City, Robert Chesebrough, patented “a new and useful product from petroleum,” which he named Vaseline. His patent proclaimed the virtues of the purified extract of oil distillation residue as a lubricant, hair treatment, and balm for chapped hands. Vaseline later helped launch a cosmetics empire…
May 26, 1891 – Patent will lead to Crayola Crayons
A new petroleum product would get its name from the French word for chalk, craie, and an English adjective meaning oily, oleaginous. Crayola Crayons began when Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith of Easton, Pennsylvania, received a patent for their “Apparatus for the Manufacture of Carbon Black”…
Energy Education Articles
Updated editorial content on the American Oil & Gas Historical Society website includes these articles:
Oil from Alaska’s North Slope began moving through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System on June 20, 1977. Four years earlier, a deciding vote in the U.S. Senate by Vice President Spiro Agnew had passed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act. The 800-mile pipeline system has since carried billions of barrels of oil to the port of Valdez and been recognized as an engineering landmark. See Trans-Alaska Pipeline History.
Following the first commercial New Mexico oil well in 1922, the state’s petroleum industry took off with the discovery of the Hobbs field on June 13, 1928, by the Midwest State No. 1 well. Oil production attracted investors and drilling companies, transforming Hobbs from “sand, mesquite, bear grass and jack rabbits” to the fastest growing town in America. See First New Mexico Oil Wells.
In 1923, near Big Lake in West Texas, on arid land leased from the University of Texas, a new Permian Basin oilfield was discovered after 21 months of cable-tool drilling (averaging less than five feet a day). Within three years of the discovery by the Santa Rita No. 1 well, royalties endowed the University of Texas with $4 million, which the student newspaper reported, “made the difference between pine-shack classrooms and modern buildings.” See Santa Rita taps Permian Basin.
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To prevent fuel shortages from stalling the 1944 Normandy invasion, Operation PLUTO – Pipe Line Under The Ocean – became a top-secret Allied strategy. Pipe was wound onto enormous floating “conundrums” designed to spool off the pipe when towed across the English Channel. Each mile used over 46 tons of lead, steel tape, and armored wire, for crossing almost 70 miles from Isle of Wight to Cherbourg. Learn more in PLUTO, Secret Pipelines of WW II.
Thank you again for subscribing. Please share this newsletter with your friends — and visit our website often. Help promote using petroleum history in energy education programs and teacher workshops. Finally, support keeping the American Oil & Gas Historical Society operating during these iconic times. — Bruce Wells
“Any survey of the natural resources used as sources of energy must include a discussion about the importance of oil, the lifeblood of all industrialized nations.” — Daniel Yergin, bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
April 15, 2020 – Oil & Gas History News, Vol. 1, No. 4
Oil & Gas History News
Spring is here, but most of us must take in the changing of the season from home. As communities navigate this difficult period, the American Oil & Gas Historical Society hopes this month’s newsletter might help you fill your time at home with intriguing reading material. Even in these tough times, we continue to look to history for inspiring stories that show America’s enduring energy heritage. These latest This Week in Petroleum History posts share distance learning resources for teachers, students and parents.
Monthly Highlights from “This Week in Petroleum History”
Links to summaries and articles from four weeks of U.S. oil and natural gas history, including oilfield discoveries, new technologies, petroleum products, and more.
April 13, 1974 – Oklahoma Well sets World Depth Record
After 504 days and about $7 million, the Bertha Rogers No. 1 well reached a total depth of 31,441 feet before being stopped by liquid sulfur. Drilled in the heart of Oklahoma’s Anadarko Basin, it was the deepest well in world for several years and the deepest in the United States for three decades until exceeded in 2004…
April 10, 1866 – Brothers patent Railroad Oil Tank Car
James and Amos Densmore patented their “Improved Car for Transporting Petroleum” designed for the new Pennsylvania oil regions. The Densmore tank car briefly improved oil industry transportation infrastructure. A decade later, Amos invented a new design for typewriter keyboards; his “Q-W-E-R-T-Y” arrangement helped prevent keys from colliding…
April 4, 1951 – First North Dakota Oil Well reveals Williston Basin
After eight months of difficult drilling and severe snowstorms, Amerada Petroleum discovered oil in North Dakota – revealing the Williston Basin two miles beneath Clarence Iverson’s farm near Tioga. About 30 million acres would be leased within two months of the discovery…
March 26, 1930 – “Wild Mary Sudik” makes Newreels
What would become one of Oklahoma’s most famous oil wells of the Great Depression erupted from a geologic formation about 6,500 feet beneath Oklahoma City. Pressured natural gas from the Wilcox Sand proved difficult to control in the prolific Oklahoma City field. Within a week of the gusher, Hollywood newsreels featured it in theaters across the country…
Recent Article Updates
Editorial content on the American Oil & Gas Historical Society website includes these articles:
The offshore industry’s robotic technology advanced in 1966 when the government retrieved hydrogen bombs lost in the Mediterranean Sea after a B-52 crashed off the coast of Spain. America’s first cable-controlled underwater research vehicle (CURV) recovered three 70-kiloton bombs from a depth of 2,850 feet. See ROV – Swimming Socket Wrench.
Exploration companies rushed to Portland, Indiana, in 1886 after natural gas was found at a depth of only 700 feet. The discovery came just months after a spectaculargas well about 100 miles to the northeast – the “Great Karg Well” of Findlay, Ohio. Andrew Carnegie would proclaim natural gas replaced 10,000 tons of coal a day for making steel. See Indiana Natural Gas Boom.
South of the Red River border with Oklahoma, at Electra, Texas, the Clayco No. 1 well struck oil on April 1, 1911. As news spread through town, people thought it was an April Fools joke, but the gusher on William Waggoner’s ranch launched an oil boom that would last for decades. In 2001, community oil history activists convinced Texas legislators to designate Electra the Pump Jack Capital of Texas.
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In early 1864, John Wilkes Booth made the first of several trips to Franklin, Pennsylvania, where he purchased an oil lease on the Fuller farm. Maps of the day show the three-acre strip of land on the farm, about one mile south of Franklin and on the east side of the Allegheny River. Booth formed an oil company, believing his well would make him a fortune. It didn’t. Learn more in Dramatic Oil Company.
I hope these and the website’s other petroleum history articles and images can help brighten your day at home. The historical society is especially grateful to the growing number of supporting members and their expressions of genuine concern. Any contribution is appreciated and helps keep the historical society operating.
— Bruce Wells, Executive Director, American Oil & Gas Historical Society
Founded in 1934, the Dallas Petroleum Club witnessed the city becoming a financial center for the Texas petroleum industry.
The Dallas Petroleum Club in 2014 celebrated its 80th anniversary, according to Nina P. Flournoy, who wrote a book about the milestone.
Dallas-based Flournoy’s The Lions Among Us: Celebrating 80 Years of The Dallas Petroleum Club describes how the club grew out of 1930s East Texas discoveries that ignited the Texas oil and natural gas industry. Founded in 1934, the club witnessed the city becoming a financial center for the Texas industry.
The club was organized just four years after Columbus Marion “Dad” Joiner had discovered the East Texas oilfield near Kilgore, about 120 miles to the east. Learn more about Joiner, “Doc ” Lloyd and Haroldson Lafayette Hunt in East Texas Oilfield Discovery. (more…)
To add your museum, update current information, or promote a news item, event, or exhibit opening, email bawells@aoghs.org with details. Also see events page.
“Sweetest Festival in Texas”
The 32nd Heritage Syrup Festival will take place all day on November 14, 2020, at the Depot Museum and its grounds (five scenic acres, 12 historic and restored structures). Activities include bands and dancing at Heritage Square, Main Street, and the Civic Theatre in downtown Henderson. Organizers proudly claim the event among the “Sweetest Festival in Texas.” The Rusk County museum, a 1901 Missouri Pacific railway depot, “today is your ticket to East Texas heritage – and offers education instruction for folk arts.
East Texas Oil Museum at Kilgore College
Big Inch Pipeline Event –On January 25, 2020, a popular community oil museum and the Gregg County Historical Museum presented a special event, “Oil for Victory: Big Inch Pipeline Lecture and Panel” to celebrating the historic pipeline and the city of Longview’s sesquicentennial anniversary.
According to the East Texas Oil Museum, local historian Larry Courington explained the key role the Big Inch line played in fueling the Allies’ victory in World War II. The 1,254 mile-long pipeline transported Texas oil to the east coast. A panel discussion followed. Speakers included Don Carleton, executive director, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas; Kimberly Fish, local author; Mickey Smith, former Gregg County Judge; and Luke Legate, director of G. Fox Consulting.
Boomtown Theater Renovation – In addition to the East Texas Oil Museum’s WWII pipeline exhibit, the museum’s popular Boomtown Theater reopened after a renovation, according to Manager Olivia Moore. It was the first significant renovation of the theater since the museum opened in 1980. A ribbon-cutting ceremony on February 1, 2020, included Moore, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Kilgore College President Brenda Kays, and Kilgore Mayor Ronnie Spradlin.
“Thousands of visitors over the years have learned about the rich history of the East Texas Oil Boom, a history that took place right here in our backyard by watching ‘The Great East Texas Oil Boom’, a movie in the theater,” Kays noted. “Now, that movie has been digitized and it will last from this point forward into a state-of-the-art production and the theater has received major upgrades and renovations to improve the experience of our guests to the museum.”
According to the Kilgore News Hearld, “Kays acknowledged and thanked the city of Kilgore for their financial support of $140,000 towards the renovation project and announced Moore would hang a commemorative plaque in Boomtown Theater memorializing the date of the reopening.”
The East Texas Oil Museum at Kilgore College also hosts a variety of group events, including a meeting of the local chapter of the American Chemical Society. For more information, contact ETOM Manager Olivia Moore at (903) 983-8295 or email omoore@kilgore.edu.
Petroleum Museum in Midland, Texas, adds 1920s era Steel Derrick
A giant steel derrick has become the latest impressive outdoor attraction at the Petroleum Museum in Midland, Texas. “The Museum is erecting its newest Oil Patch exhibit – a late 1920s Emsco metal derrick used in the Darst Creek Oilfield in eastern Guadalupe County,” noted the museum’s quarterly newsletter Bits & Bytes in October 2019. “Hundreds of these derricks, often only 350 to 400 feet apart, dotted the oilfields around Luling.”
A dozen Midland, Texas, companies donated equipment to restore a circa 1920s steel derrick. Photo courtesy Petroleum Museum.
Discovered on July 18, 1929, by the Texas Comany, the oilfield would yield almost 107 million barrels of oil over the next three decades.
“These simple steel derricks play a huge part in the history of the petroleum industry,” noted a NewsWest9 reporter on November 18, 2019, adding, “Through the ’30s, steel derricks were used to drill oil wells but after their job was done they were left standing dormant throughout the United States.”
The Petroleum Museum’s facilities coordinator, James White, reportedly spend five years searching for a suitable historic steel derrick before finding one stacked in a field in Luling, Texas (home of another popular oil museum). Occidental Petroleum Corporation bought and donated the derrick to the Petroleum Museum; other Midland area companies donated other equipment.
Honoring America’s Petroleum Pioneers
Many universities and colleges with petroleum-related curricula honor accomplishments of their oil patch alumni. Ohio’s Marietta College, with a renowned geology and petroleum engineering program, maintains a Petroleum and Geology Hall of Fame on campus.
Their reputations among peers speak of many noble achievements — and award deserving careers in the oil patch. Every year a select group oil and natural gas business leaders are honored by their colleagues, their industry, and their communities.
Among the most prestigious awards (to name only a few that take place every year) are: the Independent Petroleum Association of America, Washington, D.C., presentation of the Chief Roughneck Award at its annual meeting. The bronze “Joe Roughneck” statue has been presented since 1955. See “Meet Joe Roughneck.”
Other awards are presented by the Petroleum Museum in Midland, Texas, the Offshore Energy Center in Houston, Kansas museums in El Dorado and Great Bend, and the Pioneer Oil Museum in Bolivar, New York. All host special award events or maintain their own halls of fame honoring men and women of the petroleum industry.
Still other organizations, including professional trade groups like the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, Wichita Falls, frequently host legends or legacy award dinners and luncheons. Universities in oil producing states also honor their alumni.
Ohio’s Marietta College, with its world-renowned geology and petroleum engineering program, adds members to its Petroleum and Geology Hall of Fame. The Ohio Oil & Gas Association maintains its hall of fame “as a way to honor those who have made their own distinct contributions to the Ohio oil and gas industry.”
Petroleum Museum Hall of Fame
The Petroleum Hall of Fame at the Petroleum Museum in Midland, Texas, is “dedicated to those who cherished the freedom to dare, and whose work and service helped build the Permian Basin.”
The Petroleum Hall of Fame at the Petroleum Museum in Midland, Texas — which added five distinguished members on April 14, 2011, is “dedicated to those who cherished the freedom to dare, and whose work and service helped build the Permian Basin — Let their achievements be remembered and their beliefs inspire!”
The Hall of Fame received its first member in 1968, several years before the museum itself actually opened in 1975. Induction of the 100th member came in 1999. In each odd-numbered year a maximum of four people are inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Those inducted have been elected by the museum’s governing board, after an exhaustive study of their qualifications by a special committee. Candidates not chosen in the year submitted will be automatically reconsidered in future elections.
The 2011 inductees were I. Jon Brumley, Sam G. Gibbs, William D. Kleine, and “the team of Mack C. Chase and John R. Gray,” according to museum Director Kathy Shannon. Biographical files and portraits of each honoree are available in the museum archives.
Located in the heart of the Permian Basin in West Texas, The Petroleum Museum includes a 40,000-square-foot facility housing photographic wall murals depicting early life in the oilfields, a West Texas boomtown, and a marine diorama of 230 million years ago.
Colonel Edwin L. Drake Legendary Oilman Award
The Petroleum History Institute’s Larry Woodfork, left, presented the 2011 Colonel Edwin L. Drake Legendary Oilman Award to I.L. “Ike” Morris, founder and CEO of Waco Oil and Gas Company, Inc., Glenville, West Virginia.
In late June, the Petroleum History Institute(PHI) of Oil City, Pennsylvania, presented a life-time achievement award during its History Symposium in Marietta, Ohio. Oilman I.L. “Ike” Morris received the Petroleum History Institute’s “highest honor and most prestigious award,” the Colonel Edwin L. Drake Legendary Oilman Award.
The June 23, 2011, presentation took place during the Institute’s annual symposium and field trip — as members cruised aboard a sternwheeler riverboat on the Ohio River following a reception and banquet. Larry D. Woodfork, PHI chairman of the honors and awards committee, presented this year’s award to Morris, founder and CEO of Waco Oil and Gas Company, Glenville, West Virginia.
Originally from Oklahoma, Morris established an oil service company in Gilmer County, West Virginia, in the early 1960s and eventually expanded into all exploration and production, notes an article in the Gilmer Free Press.
Every September since 1969, the West Virginia Oil and Gas Festival is hosted by Sistersville, an historic oil community on the Ohio River. In addition to antique engine shows, a parade and the crowning of an Oil and Gas Queen, festival organizers host a banquet for its West Virginia Oil and Gas Man of the Year. Photo by Bruce Wells.
The PHI 2011 award was presented by Woodfork, an independent consulting geologist and emeritus state geologist of West Virginia. He praised Morris and his “stellar business career, great successes and accomplishments in the oil and gas industry, as well as his contributions to the local community, including the very generous philanthropy of he and his wife, Sue — a Gilmer County girl and long-time school teacher — to Glenville State College, their support of W.V.U., and numerous other charitable organizations and enterprises — the list of which goes on and on.”
Both Woodfork and Morris have been previously honored as the “West Virginia Oil and Gas Man of the Year” — Woodfork in 1991 and Morris in 1994. The award is made during the September annual West Virginia Oil and Gas Festivalheld in Sistersville, an historic oil community on the Ohio River.
Chronicle of Gulf of Mexico Petroleum History
The Offshore Oil and Gas History Project “draws from economic research, oral histories, photographs, artifacts — and personal accounts gathered to examine the historical evolution of the offshore oil and gas industry and its effects on Louisiana’s coastal culture, economy, landscape, and society.”
Is knowledge of U.S. offshore exploration and production history important?
Although America’s offshore petroleum industry began in the Pacific Ocean more than 100 years ago, it wasn’t until 1947 that a company drilled beyond the sight of land — southwest of Morgan City, Louisiana.
Now available online: the first six volumes of a project to study Louisiana offshore petroleum history — a decade in the making and still in progress.
“Understanding Louisiana’s relationship with offshore energy development must begin in the bayous, lakes and marshes of south Louisiana in the late 1920s,” notes the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), which is working with three universities to compile a history of southern Louisiana’s oil and natural gas industry.
Funded by the agency’s environmental studies program, the Offshore Oil and Gas History Project draws from economic research, oral histories, photographs, artifacts — and personal accounts gathered from former industry engineers, managers, workers, and community and political leaders, according to Ocean Science, a quarterly publication of BOEMRE, formerly the Minerals Management Service.
This offshore history project, begun in 2002 as a cooperative agreement with the Louisiana State University — which partnered with the University of Arizona and the University of Houston — has two phases. The six volumes of the completed first phase (a southern Louisiana offshore history up to 1970) are available online at the University of Arizona. The second phase focuses on the development farther offshore.
The first-quarter 2011 issue of BOEMRE’s Ocean Science notes that the two phases of the Offshore Oil and Gas History Project “forms the basis for understanding the evolution of the industry and how that is intertwined with local communities.”
Editor’s Note — The first U.S. well out of sight of land was drilled in 1947 in the Gulf of Mexico by Kerr-McGee Oil Industries partnered with Phillips Petroleum and Stanolind Oil & Gas companies. A freestanding platform was erected 10 miles offshore…in 18 feet of water. Read more at “Offshore Oil History.”
Have an artifact, a collections of papers, photos, or other petroleum-related material that should be preserved? Local museums and county historical societies are a good place to start.
The American Oil & Gas Historical Society’s Oil Families page offers several examples and suggestions. Community museums preserve the many personal and professional stories of U.S. petroleum history.
September 2019
Sinclair oil tankers from 1941
I am seeking information on three tankers which so far has been hard to come by. I happened upon your pages and, while these vessels are not listed there, I am taking a stab in the dark that you might know the information I seek, or know where to direct me to get it.
It is information on three Sinclair oil tankers, which were not Type T2 but rather custom built. I have so far found their names, that they were built in 1941 in Quincy, MA, at the Fore River shipyard, and that they had Armed Guard detachments during WWII, indicating that they had some armament.
The vessels are the Sinclair Opaline, the Sinclair Rubilene, and the Sinclair Superflame. I want to know for all three their:
total barrels or gallons of cargo they could carry
net and gross registered tonnage
maximum and cruising speeds
specific armament
I have this additional information from NavSource:
Hull No. 1488 Sinclair Opaline 471′ Tanker Sinclair Refining Co. New 16 Aug 1941
Hull No. 1489 Sinclair Rubilene 471′ Tanker Sinclair Refining Co. New 20 Sept 1941
Hull No. 1490 Sinclair Superflame 471′ Tanker Sinclair Refining Co. New 7 Nov 1941
I do appreciate your assistance, and any information which you can provide. Sincerely, — John
Post helpful information or suggestions in comments section at bottom.
