Oldgas.com Home  

Click here for Original Gas Pump Plate auction listings

Home | Help | Events | Auctions | Parts | Pictures | Links | Contact
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 1 of 5 1 2 3 4 5
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
B
BudE Offline OP
Petro Enthusiast
OP Offline
Petro Enthusiast
B
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
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!

Value Questions and Showcase forums

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.
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
B
BudE Offline OP
Petro Enthusiast
OP Offline
Petro Enthusiast
B
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
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).]

Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
B
BudE Offline OP
Petro Enthusiast
OP Offline
Petro Enthusiast
B
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
This is one of the really nice globes from the MARTIN OIL COMPANY

[This message has been edited by BudE (edited 05-01-2005).]

Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
B
BudE Offline OP
Petro Enthusiast
OP Offline
Petro Enthusiast
B
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
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).]

Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
B
BudE Offline OP
Petro Enthusiast
OP Offline
Petro Enthusiast
B
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
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).]

Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 4,160
Veteran Member
Offline
Veteran Member
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 4,160
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
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 6,772
Likes: 1
Veteran Member
Offline
Veteran Member
Joined: Mar 2002
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/
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
B
BudE Offline OP
Petro Enthusiast
OP Offline
Petro Enthusiast
B
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
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!

Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 671
T
Petro Enthusiast
Offline
Petro Enthusiast
T
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 671
Hera are a few items from gassigns.org
http://www.gassigns.org/martin.htm

Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
B
BudE Offline OP
Petro Enthusiast
OP Offline
Petro Enthusiast
B
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
This is the only picture I have of a Chicago area Martin Oil Service station.

Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
B
BudE Offline OP
Petro Enthusiast
OP Offline
Petro Enthusiast
B
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
Here are the signs that Thunder posted

Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
B
BudE Offline OP
Petro Enthusiast
OP Offline
Petro Enthusiast
B
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
These are the stations Thunder posted! Thanks for the post!

Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
B
BudE Offline OP
Petro Enthusiast
OP Offline
Petro Enthusiast
B
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
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.

Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
B
BudE Offline OP
Petro Enthusiast
OP Offline
Petro Enthusiast
B
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
I told you they sold used oil! LOL

Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
B
BudE Offline OP
Petro Enthusiast
OP Offline
Petro Enthusiast
B
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 162
Here are a couple globes that lastgas and I both own. They are both from MARTIN OIL SERVICE.

Page 1 of 5 1 2 3 4 5

Moderated by  Oldgas, Ryan Underthun 

Link Copied to Clipboard

Click here for Gas Pump auction listings

Copyright © 2023 Primarily Petroliana Interactive, All Rights Reserved

Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5