#81923
Sun May 01 2005 10:13 AM
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Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
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This month's COMPANY OF THE MONTH is MARTIN and their affiliates. Martin was always based in Illinois. I don't know for sure but I think it first started in the Carbondale (southern) part of Illinois and soon also had established a second headquarters in Chicago. This happened about the mid 30's,same time I was born. The company lasted until sometime in the late 80's or early 90's. As I tried to learn more about the company for all of us several parts of the picture became cloudy. Product labels that are very old show dual headquarters in both cities under the name MARTIN OIL COMPANY. Later on in the mid 50's the division in the Chicago area became MARTIN OIL SERVICE while the Carbondale company remained MARTIN OIL COMPANY. MARTIN OIL COMPANY had stations in southern Illinois and a few other southern states in the middle of the country and in 1977 sold out to J.D. STREET from Maryland Heights, MO. They owned the ZEPHYR brand and the MARTIN OIL CO. stations were rebranded to ZEPHYR.And as far as I can learn thats the end of MARTIN OIL COMPANY. MARTIN OIL SERVICE, the Chicago area divsion, had grown much larger and had grown coast to coast. They seemingly had stations in selected states in no particular pattern and a list of their stations in the 60's shows stations in very unusual growth patterns. The crude oil crunch really hurt them in the seventies and they shrunk down to less than 50 stations in the 80's. I think the final remains of MARTIN OIL SERVICE was sold 1n 1994 to MARATHON's EMRO marketing. MARTIN OIL SERVICE had a fair size terminal in Blue Island, Iliinois during the time I worked for Texas Eastern pipeline company and I worked in there many hours making our deliveries to them. Since they never had any of their own crude oil or refinerys and bought their products from different firms I always wondered if getting near open market distribution points is what caused their unusual growth pattern. Their large facility at Blue Island was fed by pipeline, barges, and rail. They had 2 large loading racks for their delivery trucks. During some of the years I worked in there the terminal contained their corporate offices, later they moved to a large office building nearby in Alsip, IL. The memorabelia we collectors find today may show either location (Blue Island or Alsip) as home base. Martin Oil Service's stations always sold gas and products at the lowest prices to be found on the street and supplimented them with prizes,premiums earned instantly at the pump or thru saving cupons in their cupon books.At times their lowest priced oil was rerefined from used oil. In the early years of our marrage we bought fuel at Martin in order to get our free box of laundry soap or other item we needed included in our purchase.Martin stations always carried kerosene for home heaters that they called "Range Oil". Martin's globes,uniform patches,maps, matches,etc. were fairly attractive and I will show some to you as the month goes along. Later I will pass some more facts along as well. I hope some of you have some Martin items to post as well as some more knowledge of the company than I have. I think Martin started as a family business and in some form stayed that way nearly to the end. I also seem to remember that folks our company delt with in Blue Island had family members in the other company in Carbondale. The large office in Alsip is now home of a very large church. I found an old news article dated 3-98 that said "Kanab pipeline partners announced it's subsidiary,ST Services,aqquired the terminal in the Chicago area from Martin oil marketing on 3-12-98 including barge and pipeline connections and 752,000 barrels of storage". And there went another Oil company into history!
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Please - NO offers to Buy or Sell in this forum category
Statements such as, "I'm thinking about selling this." are considered an offer to sell.
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#81924
Sun May 01 2005 10:29 AM
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Posts: 162
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This is a Martin attendents cap: " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">[img] http://img217.echo.cx/img217/1074/martincap7fh.j pg[/img] [This message has been edited by BudE (edited 05-01-2005).]
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#81925
Sun May 01 2005 10:41 AM
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Posts: 162
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This is one of the really nice globes from the MARTIN OIL COMPANY [This message has been edited by BudE (edited 05-01-2005).]
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#81926
Sun May 01 2005 10:52 AM
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Posts: 162
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This is a neat large jacket patch for MARTIN OIL SERVICE [URL=http://www.imageshack.us] [/URL The neat little guy with the salute always reminded me of the oildrop kids and he is on many of their products. [This message has been edited by BudE (edited 05-01-2005).]
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#81927
Sun May 01 2005 11:19 AM
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Posts: 162
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Martin's finest products were always marked with the purple martin bird. These are globes from the 2 companies best fuels. [This message has been edited by BudE (edited 05-01-2005).] [This message has been edited by BudE (edited 05-01-2005).]
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#81928
Sun May 01 2005 12:12 PM
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Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 4,160
Veteran Member
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Great info and pics Bud !!! Looking forward to more. Very Cool
------------------ Hubba: GAS GEEK , OIL FREAK and humble moderator
Hubba: GAS GEEK , OIL FREAK of Seattle WA
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#81929
Mon May 02 2005 07:46 PM
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 6,772 Likes: 1
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Posts: 6,772 Likes: 1 |
Great info Bud. I can't wait to see more.
Wanted: Gas pump globes:Sinclair & affiliates, IL companies. Ripple bodies. Anything Sinclair, Stoll, Pierce, 4 Bros. http://www.lastgas15.com/
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#81930
Mon May 02 2005 08:14 PM
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Posts: 162
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I hope some of you have a few Martin items to show. I will post several globes,oil cans, ads,etc soon but I don't have a good picture of a Martin Station!
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#81931
Tue May 03 2005 03:30 AM
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Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 671
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Hera are a few items from gassigns.org http://www.gassigns.org/martin.htm
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#81932
Tue May 03 2005 04:31 PM
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Posts: 162
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This is the only picture I have of a Chicago area Martin Oil Service station.
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#81933
Tue May 03 2005 04:43 PM
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Posts: 162
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Here are the signs that Thunder posted
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#81934
Tue May 03 2005 04:48 PM
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These are the stations Thunder posted! Thanks for the post!
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#81935
Tue May 03 2005 05:05 PM
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Martin facts for the evening:Fact one: Chicago like most all large cities is a kind of a rectangle with its Eastern border on Lake Michigan. Ever since Mrs O'Leary's cow kicked over the lantern and started the great Chicago fire no gasoline has ever been allowed to be stored closer than 5 miles from the city's eastern edge{Cicero Ave. IL Rt. 50 is as close as you can get} Martin was right across the street from Clark's big refinery in Blue Island where being just outside Chicago , they can get a little further east. Fact 2: Before we brought our pipeline to them which carried their products from Houston area to Chicago for about a penny a gallon they relied largly on barges coming up the Mississippi to the Illinois River and then up the canal into Blue Island, Martin Oil Co. owned at least two Miss. river tow boats for pushing the barges,MARCO 1 and MARCO 2, One of them burned in Joliet, IL, a little west of Blue Island along the river. There were casulties including the ship's cook.
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#81936
Tue May 03 2005 05:34 PM
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Posts: 162
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I told you they sold used oil! LOL
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#81937
Wed May 04 2005 07:43 PM
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Posts: 162
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