Old oil companies (was: Re: WHDH-TV Weather 1959)

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:13:36 -0500, A Joseph Ross <joe@attorneyross.com> said:

> I also remember that in 1973, after the change over to Exxon in the 
> United States, I spent a week in London and found that the signs there 
> still said Esso.

As indeed they still do to this day, in the UK and most other
countries.  In some places, the brand is licensed to another oil
company.  (In Canada, the trademark is owned by Imperial Oil, which is
a majority-owned subsidiary of ExxonMobil, and one of the few
remaining Canadian companies that still use the word "Imperial" in
their formal names.  (The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, better
known as CIBC, is another.))

The other Standard Oil companies were still vigorously maintaining
their local "Standard" trademarks at that time and would not permit
Standard of New Jersey to operate as "Esso" in their territories;
Jersey Standard used the name "Enco" there, until they bought Humble
Oil of Texas and rebranded everything "Exxon".  (The original
"Standard Oil" companies doing business under the "Standard" name in
this period were Jersey Standard; Standard of New York (Socony), which
adopted the name Socony-Vacuum (Mobil) and the famous Pegasus logo
when it acquired competitor Vacuum Oil Co.; Kentucky Standard (KySO),
which was acquired by Standard of California (CalSO) and with it
became Chevron; Standard of Ohio (SOHIO); and Standard of Indiana,
which acquired American Oil Co. and became Amoco.  Standard of
Louisiana (STANOCOLA) was acquired by Jersey Standard early on and was
already operating under the Esso name.  Various other retailers were
also part of the Standard Oil Trust, but never operated under the
Standard name.)

All of these companies maintained at least one retailer in each state
using the name "Standard", in some cases long after the name had been
ceded to the history books -- Scott and I stopped by the (Amoco)
Standard station in Iowa not long before it became a BP back in 2001.
In some cases, the name they eventually adopted, like Chevron and I
believe Amoco, was first used in territories where they could not use
"Standard".  However, SOHIO used the name BORON outside of Ohio (it
had no other "home" territory, unlike the others) until they were all
rebranded as BP (which the company would like to remind you definitely
does not stand for "Anglo-Persian Oil Company" or even "British
Petroleum" any more).

-GAWollman