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Oil patch natural setting for autos
6th June, 2006
Automobiles came early to Oil City and Franklin, natural settings for machinery that required the fruits of the twin cities' premier industry - petroleum.
The ability to travel, quickly and efficiently, was paramount to oil, banking, steel, glass and other industry leaders busy revving up the world's first industrialized oil patch. Times were very good and business was booming. Combined, the two cities had nine refineries, nearly 300 independent oil producers, two dozen hotels, six major railroad line depots, 19 dry goods/department stores, new high schools, large hospitals and much more.
In that hustle-and-bustle atmosphere, it was fitting, then, that the two cities would have the wherewithal to serve the traveling public.
There were plenty of carriage and wagon makers (six in Oil City, including Kramer's on the North Side), teamsters and draymen (16 outfits in Franklin), a dozen blacksmiths and 18 horse boarding stables between the two communities, and five saddle and harness-makers apiece. In Oil City, saddle-maker Beal & Infield were just up Elm Street from the Winskill & Miller blacksmith shop, which itself was near Sam Nunemaker's boarding stables.
Despite all the horseflesh, though, there were automobiles.
Tucked in that same livery-heavy 200 block of Elm Street but across the street was Curtis H. Weaver's auto and supply shop. Weaver, who would gain fame by signing on for a Buick franchise earlier than any other dealer in the U.S., tinkered with the newfangled "horseless carriages" and was selling a few in town.
And, he sold gasoline at his business at 255 Elm St. for the contrivances.
In Franklin, a city where early car buffs had organized an Automobile Club in 1899 and had set an 8-miles-per-hour speed limit for automobiles traveling city streets, two entrepreneurs were hawking gasoline.
Franklin Motor Co. at 62 12th Street, owned by Sylvester Logan and William E. Moore, hedged their bet by offering "automobile services and bicycle repairs." The Venango Automobile Station, managed by F.E. Steele and located on Howard Street, advertised that it was "the exclusive agency for White Autos and Ford cars in the county. Steele, a Grant Street resident, extolled the virtues of the "15-18 horsepower, shaft drive Ford Runabout at $500 - new."
Still, the filling station business was a helter-skelter type of service industry, one learning on the fly as it quickly grew to accommodate car buyers. That was particularly true in Venango County where its industrial might - petroleum - was seizing the opportunity to cash in on the growing auto business. What better way to advertise that then to outfit its executives with the new cash crop - automobiles.
The first "real" gasoline service station, according to a pop culture history by Dale Alien Gyure, was set up in 1907 by Standard Oil of California near its Seattle kerosene refinery. However, the first station to shuck that refinery proximity and stand alone was built near St. Louis by Shell. The gas station concept got jazzed up in 1912, writes Gyure, when an architect designed a building specifically to market gasoline and lubes. It was built in Pittsburgh by Gulf.
Gradually, more gasoline-buying outlets opened in Oil City and Franklin (by 1917, there were about 3 million automobiles in the U.S. and fewer than 12,000 filling stations). Still, the filling station business was more a sideline than anything else as pumps were generally relegated to the back lots of half a dozen new car dealers.
EARLY GAS RATIONING
In its infancy stage, the filling station industry was feeling its way in Oil City and Franklin. Sometimes, though, the gas station took the limelight. In 1918, World War I fuel needs required severe rationing of gasoline and lubricants. That meant "gasless Sundays" during which only certain drivers - most specifically, physicians and milkmen - could buy gasoline at local stations.
The sales shutdown, launched by the National Security League's Home Defense Council, started in early September and extended for several more months. League members fanned out in Oil City and Franklin "to take the names and license numbers of all automobile owners who used their cars on Sundays." Gas station owners were pushed to ask for written requests from motorists who pleaded emergencies on those gasless Sundays.
1920S BRING CHANGES
The gas station industry changed dramatically in the early 1920s.
In that decade, oil refiners across the U.S. embarked on a building spree designed exclusively to market their specific petroleum cuts, whether gasoline or lubricants. The companies chose logos, adopted slogans, created color motifs and more to make their brands more noticeable, thus enticing customer loyalty.
The hometown refiners - Pennzoil (South Penn), Quaker State and Continental Refining - were in that hunt for customers.
Pennzoil built its first gasoline filling station in Oil City in 1921 and quickly moved to construct more in the Pittsburgh area, Michigan, New York and eastern Ohio. By 1930, Pennzoil had constructed or purchased 75 gas stations.
The company moved quickly to capture part of the market. In 1922, Pennzoil launched its first national advertising campaign that was capped with the "Sound your Z for Pennzoil" slogan.
Quaker State, too, began building filling stations and went a step further than its rivals.
Barbara Paull's 1999 "History of Quaker State Corporation" shows Quaker State tied its lubes and gasoline right to the oil valley's history. In the 1920s, the oil company obtained Permit # 1 for the right to display the "Pure Pennsylvania Grade Crude Oil" decal - a logo that promised the world's best crude oil - on its oil drums and Sterling Oil gas stations. Quaker State also laid out a 1926 advertising campaign that promised "an extra quart in every gallon" of its auto lubes.
Continental Refining Co. on the Oil City-Rouseville Road began setting up gasoline stations throughout northwestern Pennsylvania. Its fuel products were distinguished by the yellow, red and black Coreco label.
Wolf's Head, also headquartered in Oil City as Empire Oil Works, joined its two oil patch cousins late in the 1920s. Many of its outlets were known by the Wolverine brand. In homage to its roots, the company's marketing blitz keyed on "Finest of the fine since 1879."
The oil companies' glitzy advertising push brought something more than brand name familiarity to gasoline stations across the nation - it spawned amenities, including rest rooms with guaranteed need-a-key privacy, uniformed station attendants, free air, free road maps, and full service.
In 1927, two years short of the stock market collapse that would send the nation's industries, including the automobile trade, into a tailspin, nearly two dozen gas station owners had set up shop in Oil City and Franklin. The amenities for a new mode of transportation came even as mass transit systems - Oil City had 35 miles of electrically operated street car tracks - were expanding.
OIL CITY FLOURISHES
Oil City was, as its name "the Hub of Oildom" implied, prospering mightily in 1927.
It had 35 daily trains in and out (Pennsylvania, New York Central, Erie), four banks with nearly $24 million in assets, seven refineries either in or just on the outskirts of the city, 42 major manufacturing plants (including Oil Well Supply, Oil City Boiler, Oil City Milling, National Transit)
The city was the center of commerce for most of northwestern Pennsylvania. There were 21 barbers, six bakeries, 11 cigar and tobacco shops, 11 clothing stores, nine pharmacies, 22 boarding houses, 94 retail grocers, six hotels, four photograph studios, 20 restaurants, six dairies and much more.
And while there were six blacksmiths still in business, they paled in comparison to the thriving auto-related shops and stores.
Oil City had 20 new car and truck dealerships in 1927 in the city limits, including Chrysler at M&C Motors, Dodge at McMahon & McLane, Chevrolet at Oil City Motor, Hupmobile at Boyle Motor Co., Olds and Stutz at F.D. Walters, Studebaker at Warren Motor, Buick at Weaver's, Pontiac at Moore Motor, Willys-Knight Overland at Penn Overland, Chandler at G.L. Pressley, Hudson and Essex at Liberty Sales, Nash at Oil City Nash, Ford trucks at W.W. Jeffrey.
FRANKLIN PROSPERS
Down the road at Franklin, another 15 new car dealerships were in business. One of the busiest places in town was at the Automobile Club of Franklin, founded in 1899 and located in the Franklin Trust Co. Building. T.A. Kinney was president.
An auto buff could check out new cars at 15 Franklin dealerships, including HK&S Motor Co. (Star and Peerless models) at 126 Grant St., C.W. McNaughton's (Dodge) on 12th Street, Case's (Auburns) at 1285 Elk St. and R&B Motors (Chevrolet) at 1018 Liberty St.
One part of town - Coefield Corners - became known as the "Motor Hub" for its line of automobile businesses, all in place by 1925.
All that automobile-related interest spawned auxiliary businesses. In 1927, Oil City boasted 11 auto accessory stores, 21 auto repair shops, private parking lots (Plaza Parking Inc. at 9 Seneca St.), auto body building (Kramer Wagon had retooled its operations) and even a taxi company (Whitehill Yellow Cab Co. at 406 E. 2nd).
The most visible auto-related trapping, though, was the colorful, efficient, sturdy and absolutely vital gasoline filling station. By the late 1920s, there were more than a dozen places where a motorist could pull in for a fill-up in Oil City and Franklin and there was every expectation that the quick pace would continue.
That momentum was foiled by the stock market collapse and the ensuing Great Depression. Statistics show that from 1929 to 1932, automobile manufacturing fell from 5 million vehicles to 1 million.
No need, then, for more gasoline stations for the next few years.
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