ATLANTIC REFINING COMPANY
1859: Charles Lockhart and William Frew came to this region to drill for oil on the south bank of the Allegheny across from the mouth of Oil Creek in Venango County. Subsequently they bought out the Tarr Farm and Albion wells, located along Oil Creek just outside of Titusville.
Late 1860''s: Lockhart, Frew & Co. established a crude oil buyers office on Centre Street in Oil City where they provided a market for the heavy production flowing from the early Oil Region. The producers, buyers, and speculators would gather in Lockhart, Frew & Co.''s Oil City office to buy, sell and gamble on crude stored in tanks or contracts for future delivery. The firm''s Oil City office became an unorganized oil exchange.
1870: Lockhart, Frew and Co. created the Atlantic Refining Co. in Philadelphia.
1874: Atlantic merged with Standard Oil.
1872: Dr. Albert Egbert and Franklin investors created the Eclipse Lubricating Oil Co. in Sugarcreek Township (Franklin), and built a refinery there.
1876: Eclipse purchased by Standard Oil and flourished.
1892: Realignment of Standard Oil Trust activity - all of Standard''s Pennsylvania refining and marketing operations were consolidated under the Atlantic Refining Co. Throughout the balance of the nineteenth century, the
Eclipse did business under its old name, but assumed the Atlantic name in the early twentieth century.
1911: Breakup of Standard Oil, Standard marketed Atlantic brand gasoline and motor oil across Pennsylvania.
While the Franklin Eclipse refinery shut down in 1937, Atlantic gas stations remained popular throughout the state until acquired by Sunoco in 1988.
ATLANTIC PART II
The refining industry was grossly overbuilt and inefficient in the early 1870''s.
Recognizing the dire need to consolidate and rationalize the petroleum refining industry, Charles Lockhart (Atlantic Refining) recommended the "Pittsburgh Plan" for consolidation to the refiners of New York, Cleveland, and the Oil Region at a meeting in Titusville in May 1872.
This would lead to a National Refiners Association and the combining of the refining properties owned jointly by Charles Lockhart, William Frew and William Warden in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with that of John D. Rockefeller''s Standard Oil in October 1874.
This great merger of Pennsylvania refineries with
Standard Oil included the Brilliant, the National, the Nonpareil, the Standard, the Lily, the Crystal and the Model in Pittsburgh - all to be named Standard Oil of Pittsburgh, and the Atlantic Refinery in Philadelphia
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