GULF 1

00072 – GULF 1 – The Gulf Refining Company of Texas was chartered November 10, 1901, to refine and market oil from the great Spindletop field discovered earlier that year. The first Gulf refinery was built at Port Arthur. With Spindletop production declining, the company was reorganized in January 1907 as the Gulf Oil Corporation. The company built a 400-mile pipeline from the new Glenn Pool field in Oklahoma to its Port Arthur refinery. Gulf’s production more than doubled in two years, and over the next twenty years its operations expanded into most of the major oil fields in the United States and into Mexico and Venezuela. By 1950 Gulf had 43,000 employees and sold its products through more than 36,000 service stations in the United States and nearly as many in other countries. Gulf ran into trouble in the 1970’s when several key executives were involved in illegal political contributions, and the company struggled under their successors. Beginning in August of 1983, Gulf was the target of a takeover attempt by investor Thomas Boone Pickens. Finally, on March 5, 1984, the Gulf board voted to sell the company to Chevron for $13.2 billion. Chevron still uses the Gulf name on stations in the northeastern United States. This Gulf sign was used from 1936 to the sixties.