Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion CO-OP

Ok I was out and about yesterday and saw a Co-op sign and pole and needless to say was really interested. So I tried to look up more information but I can't find anything or just not looking in the right spot. So whats the story with Co-op? Was it gas and oil or just a farming co-op? Any info would be helpful thanks.

That funny you would post this i just saw one today also it was about 4feet tall and two part sign. I was wandering the same thing. They wanted 75.00 for it.

I worked for a CO-Op in 1956-the year i was discharged from the Navy.This was in Sw.Iowa,they had a number of service stations selling CO-Op gas and oil.Also they were big in fertilizers,bulk as well as ammonia.They had a transport that hauled fuel from Omaha to the bulk plants,the tank wagons delivered to farmers. :)If i remember right i think Kansas City was the main office.

I found a this online

Cooperatives provided more than 40 percent of farmers’ petroleum
needs. Five regional cooperatives owned 4 refineries, such as this one at CofSeyville, KS, owned by Farmland Industries, Inc., Kansas City,
MO.

www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/pub/cir123.pdf

This is where I found what looks to be helpful.

www.co-opgas.com

I think this is whats left of the old Co-op but I could be very wrong

We have a Co-Op here in town, supplied by CountryMark. Small Evansville, In. refinery. They have a terminal in Joilietville not to far away.
http://countrymark.com/fact_sheet.cfm

The one you saw is probably froma different Co-Op.

If you search for Farm Bureau Coop it will bring up a lot of different ones.

Somewhere on our farm here I have an old orange/green 42" porcelain Co-Op sign still in it's round frame with hangers from a gas/mercantile store that now is just a Cenex corner gas/groceries store. They had an auction back in 1995 and had found this sign in the back of a basement storage room. It has 2 hands shaking in it's logo. I also remember it has a number of chips from someone shooting it.

But whats the history of it. I see old gas stations with the co-op signs who did they report to? Did one of the bigger gas companies by them out?

In Laurel, MT, there is a refinery that was a Co-Op and it was bought out by Cenex. They also bought a bunch of their stations/stores.

Co-Op is such a general term the sign could be from anything that was a local Cooperative venture by people. Generally used by farmers, but not limited to that.
To my knowledge there isn't any Registered Trade Mark for the name Co-Op specifically. There is for specific names like "Farm Bureau Co-Op.
A Co-Op gas station could have been one station or 20. More commonly they were probably disbanded and sold off during years that profit margins for running them were down or at a loss, as opposed to being bought out by a major oil company.
Farmers with oil on their land in some area's felt it was prudent to invest in a small oil refinery for their area to cash in on not only the value from the sale of their crude oil, but the crack spread margins as well. CountyMark that I mentioned in my other post started that way.
Popular in my younger days were the Co-Op signs on Grain Elevators.
Many Ethanol plants today are Co-Ops but don't use that name they are named something else.
As you can see by all the different comments in the posts here, Co-Op's were everywhere, not specifically one company.

Chuck

The company with the orange and green Co-Op logo with the shaking hands became Midland, then Cenex. (upper Midwest) That's the only one I'm certain about.

Thanks. So is there any interest in co-op signs?

Don't know about the signs, as I don't really have space to display, but Co-Op maps aren't super popular, except maybe the earliest ones. Cenex still distributes maps, AFAIK.

I believe most if not all of the "Double Circle" Co-op signs were related to Farmland Industries. It was a National cooperative made up of smaller regional and local coops. The local coops were made up mostly of farmer owners. They helped give volume abilities to the local farmers in marketing crops, purchasing fuel, fertilizer, and chemicals. They sometimes also helped keep tire and battery, and convenience store options open in towns not large enough to sustain independant operations. The shape and color of the signs is not bad, but I have never seen them bring big dollars.

It seems like such an important part of history yet it seems little is out there.