Shops, Barns, Varmints, and Trucks - Gas Stations and their growth, History

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Gas Stations and their growth, History

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Topic: Gas Stations and their growth, History

Posted By: Coke-in-MN
Subject: Gas Stations and their growth, History
Date Posted: 02 Oct 2021 at 4:29pm

Some history on the petroleum wars in the US and the going from gasoline being a by product to the demand now .

https://americanbusinesshistory.org/gas-station-wars-rockefeller-to-dinosaurs-to-tigers-in-tanks/" rel="nofollow - https://americanbusinesshistory.org/gas-station-wars-rockefeller-to-dinosaurs-to-tigers-in-tanks/

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Life lesson: If you’re being chased by a lion, you’re on a horse, to the left of you is a giraffe and on the right is a unicorn, what do you do? You stop drinking and get off the carousel.

Replies:

Posted By: steve(ill)
Date Posted: 02 Oct 2021 at 9:53pm

from your article.....In the early years of the oil business, gasoline was considered a useless by-product of kerosene production, and often thrown away. With the rise of the automobile, especially after the breakup, the refiners had to invest in new technologies in order to get more gasoline out of the crude oil. By 1919, gasoline had become an important product to all of the Standard companies.

I saw a documentary on the History Channel about that ... very interesting... Many companies made kero or heating oil ( lamps) and quite a few accidents where there was some gasoline % in the kero and blew up.... ONE COMPANY started calling there stuff "STANDARD OIL" as it was the ACCEPTED STANDARD and had guarantee no gasoline in the kero ............... in the beginning, the gasoline was a byproduct and was poured on the ground "OUT BACK" behind the factories as it had NO USE before cars became abundant.

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Like them all, but love the "B"s.

Posted By: shameless dude
Date Posted: 02 Oct 2021 at 11:46pm

diesel fuel was also a by-product of gas production and often given away or dumped somewhere until someone else found a use for it

Posted By: Coke-in-MN
Date Posted: 03 Oct 2021 at 2:04am

Now the refineries are about like PORK slaughter - where everything but the SQUEAL is saved and used somehow.
Vacuum distillation , and cracking the crude to a point where coke , and the dredging on the bottom of towers is used as a base coating in roofing shingles .
Hauled oil out of Superior WI refinery down to Bangor WI that was called Special #6 - it was used to treat RR ties from rotting - ties were put in a Autoclave, heated and vacuum pulled to remove all moisture from wood - then pressure fed oil and other preservatives under pressure was forced into ties .
Several different grades of asphalt also extracted from crude , Sulphur , and different weights of heating oil from old Bunker C (navy ship oil) #6 to light #1 and many other products between .
Alcohol is added to gas when loaded into tankers as anything shipped by pipeline can't have alcohol in it as a water slug is used between products shipped by pipeline .which the alcohol would mix with .

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Life lesson: If you’re being chased by a lion, you’re on a horse, to the left of you is a giraffe and on the right is a unicorn, what do you do? You stop drinking and get off the carousel.

Posted By: DMiller
Date Posted: 03 Oct 2021 at 8:26am

My grandfathers both worked refineries at Wood River IL, one Shell the other Standard, cousins worked Phillips or Clark. Great Grandfather made a ton of money in Chip and Seal using remnant Coke/tar for the binder/dust control for the chips as at first received it free just to get hauled off. Grandfather recalled many times gas prices would crash, he and others would be dispatched to a isolated valve on a pipeline to or from the plant open a side valve where reports of a pipeline break 'To the Mississippi River' and shortages to come would resound and pricing would go back up.

Lots of misdealings, lots of charades, tons of money being made on sweet crude products back then, now are ever more profits from Synthesized oils that are actually reformulations from petro base stocks.

I worked in a Shell Station as I was growing up, cleaning around the mechanics to keep the mess from spreading, cleaning the rest rooms after close and the station closed everyday at 6:30 as time to go home to dinner and the rush of return from work was done, they ran the pumps and the two bay garage, changed/fixed/sold tires, changed oil where were only around a dozen styles, did minor adjustments and small service work where the car dealers and major garages did bigger heavier time consuming repairs.