On THIS DAY In History, The Unthinkable Happened In Texas
Okay, so maybe not unthinkable, but it’s still pretty neat. Texas has played a big role in the oil industry for a long time, the most notable example being Spindletop. But I bet you didn’t know that every time you pump your gas at an Exxon station, you’re buying from a company that has its roots in our state. Without the Magnolia Petroleum Company, who knows where our entire nation would be today? Most likely nowhere good.
In 1911, the Sealy family of Galveston founded Magnolia Petroleum Company, a consolidation of the famous New York Standard Oil and Vacuum Oil Company.
Their logo used to be a magnolia flower (as shown in the photo with the worker), but they adopted the Pegasus as their official symbol upon merging with Vacuum Oil.
This was one of their gas stations when they were still a standalone company.
This company's importance can't be stressed enough because it combined with Exxon in 1999 to form ExxonMobil, one of the largest oil and gas corporations in America and the entire world. Without the original Magnolia Company, gas prices would most likely be much higher today, petroleum might not be as easily accessible, and the United States may not have evolved into the greatest oil superpower in the world.
Today, if you take a drive down the historic Route 66, you can see a memorial of the original Magnolia Oil Company.
What do you know about the Magnolia Petroleum Company?
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