Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums Showcase and Stories, Petroliana Standard Oil Company (Ind) Company Of The Month, January 2006

I'm pleased to host this month's COTM, Standard Oil Company of Indiana. I'll touch briefly of some of their affiliates too. Those include Anerican Oil Company (AMOCO), Pan-American Oil Company, Standard of Nebraska, and Utah Oil Company (UTOCO), and I'll touch on Standard (Ind) unvolvement in Atlas, the combined T.B.A. effort of the Standard companies. Unfortunately much of my Standard collection is packed away at the present time so I won't be able to post pictures of most of my Standard collection. I do however have lots of pitures I've accumulated from Aumann Auctions and other sources I'll post.

Standard Oil Company of Indiana was organized in 1889 as part of the Standard Oil Trust.
They almost immediately started building a refinery in Whiting,IN. They originally wanted to build their refinery at their Lake Michigan terminal in Chicago but due to space limitations, local opposition, and high taxes they decided on the Whiting location. The Whiting refinery was one of the largest in the country and a state of the art facility.
The Standard Oil Trust had bought and stored a large quantity of crude oil from Ohio and Indiana oil fields that contained a high sulphur content. At the time they started stock piling that high sulphur crude there was no process for removing the sulphur. Standard was a pioneer in the oil business in using chemists. It was in the Standard chemestry labs that a process was perfected to remove the sulphur so that the crude could be refined into kerosene that would burn without emitting a sulphur odor.
The focus of Standard (Ind)was to briefly manufacture kerosene and lubricants for the other companies in the Standard Trust.
In 1892 Standard (Ind) started aquiring marketing companies and began building a network of bulk plants and retail outlets. The company was growing but there was trouble on the horizon!

All right, I finally have something I can post for Company of the Month! I got this porcelain Standard sign last month. It is 10 feet by 15". There was an additional tin sign that was bolted in the holes in the middle that said "Products". Any other info on this sign would be appreciated, like how old it is, etc.

Brent

Well Bob here is a 30in Indiana sign that I have hanging in my basement.



I dont know if the next two are Indiana but will post them anyway.

Standard Oil Dealer sign.



Standard Oil Products. I have another like this without the white boarder.



That is all

WHAT TROUBLE?
A FEW STANDARD OF INDIANA SIGNS


..........
INDIANA OK BUT I LIKE KYSO

My Dads Amoco Badge from about 1950 with one of mine from 1984





[This message has been edited by MarkMcK (edited 01-02-2006).]

SOME STANDARD CROWN GLOBES...THE SOLITE BELONGS TO STEVE.

..............
REX LIKES GLOBES

Great stuff guys!
Brad, the second sign you posted is Standard of Kentucky. Not sure about your third sign. Maybe Rex could tell us who used that one.
Rex, where would your Authorized Agency sign have been used?
Mark's Standard of Nebraska Red Crown sign is scarce as hens teeth.
Awesome stuff, keep 'em coming!

The Sherman Anti-trust Act was enacted in 1890. That was the beginning of Standard's trouble. The first blow Standard took wasn't from the feds however. In 1905 Missouri was the first to prosecute three Standard subsidiaries for price fixing and restraint of trade. Standard (Ind), Republic, and Waters-Pierce Oil Company.
Various suits followed in Kansas,Tennessee, and Illinois. The suit Illinois brought against Standard was for recieving illegal shipping rebates from the railroads. They were initially fined over $29,000,000.00 but they won their appeal. It seems the Judge, Kenesaw Mountain Landis overstepped his authority in several instances.
Although Standard lost the Missouri suit they fought off most of the others suits. One thing had become increasingly clear in all the legal procedings, Standard (Ind) parent company, Standard of New Jersey was actually calling the shots. The move was on to break up the Standard Oil Trust. The Sherman Act was used to break the trust which had consisted of 38 companies into 34 totally seperate entities. On December 1, 1911 Standard Oil Company (Ind) became an independant company.
One of the unexpected by-products of the break-up of the Standard Oil Trust was how the stock was distributed. Before the break-up there were thousands of small investors. Many only having a few shares. The small investors found that instead of having a single share of Standard stock worth $700, they had very small fractions of a share in each of the 34 companies. There was much confusion about the value of some stock and many small investors simply sold out. The big investors bought up stock in the different Standard companies at bargain prices......the rich got richer. The stock held by Rockafeller and six of his associates increased in value nearly $100,000,000.00 in three months!
A few years late Theodore Roosevelt wrote about the dissolution of the Standard Oil Trust "Not one particle of good resulted to anybody and a number of worthy citizens of small means were apparently injured".


[This message has been edited by Lastgas15 (edited 01-02-2006).]

Pictured here is a Standard station that was probably built in the 1920's. I took this picture 2 years ago in Southern Illinois.

Did you ever leave an auction kicking yourself for not bidding one more time on something? That's what I was doing after this etched milk glass Polarine sign sold last fall. No idea what it was used for but it was cool.


[This message has been edited by Lastgas15 (edited 01-03-2006).]

Standard used this very colorful and graphic tin sign.

Here is a 11930 copy of the Stanolind Almanac. Its very similar to the Farmers Almanac, in that it has a years worth of Moon Phases, weather forcasts, and other things like that.



It was also a good "vehicle" for putting advertisements of Standard Oil Products, into the hands of farmers & ranchers.

A few more pics.





A 12in round.

Here are the last pics I have.

Many of the companies that were part of the Standard Oil Trust used the Polarine and Red Crown trade names. That continued after the break up.
Here are some signs used by Standard of Indiana.