Laroy:
Very good reading here, and a big Thanks. I believe Elton Gish got his information mostly from the Texaco Star ?, a monthly publication for it's employees. I have most all these in hard cover, 1913-1939(?) several of my books have the name R.C. Holmes written inside the covers.
More inside Elton's book: At Port Arthur Works, experiments were conducted by R. C. Holmes (Vice President in 1913, then head of the Refining Dept., and later elected President of the Company in 1926) and F. T. Manley (a laborer in 1902, engineer of the yacht "Texas Girl", then yard foreman, later head of the Refining Dept., and elected Vice President of the Company) to develop the continuous thermal cracking process using the Adams patents. Neither man had attended college. In 1918, The Texas Company put into operation at Port Arthur Works the first experimental continuous thermal cracking unit in the U.S. This process increased the quantity of gasoline that could be produced from a barrel of crude.
Elton Gish who penned "Texaco Port Arthur Works" I highly recommend his hard cover book!
http://www.texacohistory.com/ with hundreds of photos of the green can series. In the book you'll notice that "The Texas Company" had it's "own canning department. Something Old Dick Bennett found hard to believe when I told him. "Merry Christmas Dick" Texaco also had it's own lumber yards and mills for producing the boxes all their products were shipped it.
From the Book: Also in 1932, Texaco began promoting its automobile chassis grease, Marfak. The name Marfak continued a tradition of naming Texaco products after stars in honor of its red star and green "T" trademark. Other products named for stars are Ursa, Crater, Algol, Vega, Meropa, and Spica. All of these products were manufactured, packaged, and shipped at Port Arthur Works. 18 years now I finally know where Spica Oil came from.
When I talked with Elton several years ago through emails because of my hearing impairment. Elton told me he was a Chemical Engineer with Texaco. I found tonight he retired in 2013 with 45 years of service. His father was a welder for them before him. Very nice man and I remember he could answer most my questions when I first got into the hobby. If he didn't know, he went out and usually found the answer. The book is hard cover, large, and a ton of B & W photos of the whole refinery and it's production.
Thanks again Laroy for jogging my memory about Elton