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16 Among Ourselves

employees while the planes were the Pacific. There was then a king
en l'Oute from San Diego. Four of ruling over the islands, and the
the planes stopped at F resno, Cal., Friends We Will Not redoubtable Watson played several
and Medford, Ore., for fuel, and Forget games of the good old Nevada
the personnel of the Company at Charles Boyd, Pipe Line De- Poker with his majesty_! The sky
those points performed various partment, died August 12th. was the limit, and the very first
services for the fliers. P articular night the king got "skinned"- but
mentiol\ is made of the peTSonal W. R. Kirk, Standard later he had Watson going badly.
favors extended by J. R. Schmitt, Gasoline Company, July 28th. Then there was J . C. Fitzsim-
of the Fresno Agency, which were Charles K. Loughridge, mons, who at the time of the gold
especially appreciated by the plane Sacramento Agency, July rush to Alaska in the nineties
pilots and crews. 22nd. sailed from Seattle in a high-
Robert Myatt, Richmond superstructured river boat-the
It Was Many Years Ago Refinery, August 23rd. only craft available. It was heavily
[ Continued from page 7] loaded with kerosene, candles, and
other petroleum products which
John D. Rockef eller. It was in
1870 ~hat he and his associates, traffic of early Market Street! were subsequently exchanged for
the miners' gold-dust. "J. C." took
followmg several years of experi- In 1885 the Standard Oil Com-
ence, formed the Standard Oil pany established P acific Coast his little vessel up the Inside P as-
Company in Cleveland, Ohio. Suc- headquarters in this city. A small sage into the north Pacific and
cessful management brought phe- suite, with three employees, was the Bering Sea, where a valiant
nomenal expansion to this enter- opened in California Street over battle was fought with wind and
prise, so that in the early years of the shop of Brigham, Hoppe Com- waves. The crew never was entirely
our own Scofield's exploitation in pany, commission merchants. Then certain of its fate until St.
Michael was reached.
California, the products of the began the establishment of dis- Many stining tales could be re-
Standard Oil Company, mainly tributing stations throughout the
Pacific Coast, which were the fore- counted of those early days of the
kerosene, axle grease, candles, and
lubricants, were marketed nation- runners of the sales agencies this Standard Oil Company, and a
Company has today. lengthy roster could be made of
wide and later world-wide. Sailing
vessels brought cargoes of kero- Many of the employees who those men whose courage and faith
sene in tins and cases around the came to that early company were largely made possible the success-
Horn to the Pacific Coast. Jobbers destined later to play important ful organization we know today.
received consignments, directly at roles in the great organization 1TH the dawn of the new
first, and in turn supplied the re- that the Standard Oil Company W century, the Pacific Coast
tail trade. One of the prominent came to be on the Pacific Coast.
distributors in San Francisco was There was Charlie Watson, now Oil Company joined the Standa1·d
Yates & Company. This firm with his forebears, who traveled Oil Company, bringing together
amazed the metropolis by the from one end of the coast to the two notable groups of pioneers to
Golden Gate in 1883 by having other, engaged in furtheting every whom must go much of the credit
five tank-wagons built to distrib- phase of the business. In 1887 that for building the g1·eat oil industry
ute Standard Oil kerosene. The doughty executive accompanied a of the Pacific West.
late "Mike" O'Connor proudly led cargo of ten thousand cases of The twentieth century saw the
remarkable transition of this in-
the quintet of shining red-and- kerosene' to Honolulu to establish
dustry, when the banner product
blue vehicles through the lazy distribution at the Crossroads of
-kerosene-gave way to the once
almost useless gasoline.
Our story should rightly pro-
ceed, for many have been the P,rO-
jects launched in every phase of
our business : great oil-fields have
been developed by Standard Oil
men, vast refineries erected, vital-
ly important pipe-line systems
constructed, a splendid sales-field
evolved, and a mighty fleet of
tankers created. But let us stop
now, in homage to those small
groups of men who strove for a
quarter of a century in just laying
Four S.O.E.'s on a military vacation. Left to right: 2d Lieut. J. B. Pettit a foundation upon which now rests
(Standard Gasoline Co.). Sgt. H. A. Lepper (Southern Service Unit, Prod. Dept.), this edifice of ours-this organiza-
Sgt. M . C. Mattis (Inglewood-Torrance Div., Prod. Dept.), and 1st Class Private
J. Campos (Kettleman Hills, Pipe Line Dept.) . The picture was taken at the Cali- tion, the Standard Oil Company
fornia National Guard summer camp -near San Luis Obispo, California of California.-W. J. HELD.