Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion H.R. GOLDER MOTOR OIL CAN 5QT?

I HAVE THIS H.R.GOLDER MOTOR OIL CAN IT SAYS IT WAS MADE BY HART REFINERIES MISSOULA MONTANA.DOES ANYBODY NO ANY HISTORY ABOUT THIS COMPANY AND IS THIS CAN WORTH HAVING THE TOP FIXED AND WHAT YEAR IS THE CAN THANKS FOR ANY HELP.SCOTT

Googled Hart Refineries,Montana- not much just a supreme court ruling. They didn't want to pay tax on stored fuel brought in from out of state. 1929 ruling - they lost.

Thanks for the help. That is all i can find also. Was hoping somebody would now more info on the company i am from montana and have not seen this one before.

Has anybody ever seen anything from this company at all?

Just a couple of 5qts that I re-lidded for another Mont. collector.

In a 1935 report, Hart Refineries has two small operations in Montana and probably supplied mostl;y local markets. The larger one (300 BOPD capacity) was in Missoula near McCormick Park and the old Milwaukee Road main line. The smaller Hart refinery in Hedgesville (100 BOPD) was on the NP rail siding between Billings and Great Falls. I have been to the Hedgesville site and there is little evidence of it and as I recall it was gone before WWII and the components sold and moved to Great Falls. As all of the pre-1950s Montana refineries relied on the railroads, they were very susceptible to changing market conditions and transport rates.

I dug up some addtional information on Hart Refining with some pretty instesting history on its founder. C.W. Hart a mechanical engineer from Iowa and later Wisconsin that got started in stationary gas engines and expanded into building Hart-Pharr tractors. After WWI he had a falling out with his partners and left the company to pioneer mechanized grain farming with tractors near Hedgesville, MT. Apparently he also held some oil refining patents and with the discovery of high grade crude oil at Cat Creek, MT in 1919 he started up the refinery at Hedgesville in 1920 on the GN rail line to produce tractor and automobile fuel from Cat Creek crude. Apparently he also built 10 gas stations to sell his products in the central MT area. With that success and a partner named Green from Lewistown, MT he started the larger Missoula MT refinery in 1924 and expanded retail operations into Western MT. He also constructed another refinery for investors at Cody, WY in 1935 which operated under the name Park Refining (later acquired by Husky Oil). C.W. Hart died from cardiac arrest in Missoula in 1937 at age 65. I do not have information on when Hart ceased operations.