Subsidiaries
In 1907, the Associated Pipe Line Company was formed as a subsidiary of the Associated Oil Company with the Southern Pacific Company providing property along its railroad tracks which ran from the Bakersfield Kern River oil fields to Port Costa, California, later being shipped to China and other parts of the world. The Southern Pacific Company attained the controlling interest of the Associated Oil Company's stock.
There was a fast-growing market on the Pacific for petroleum distillates as well as crude oil and since the high gravity crude oil from the San Joaquin Valley required some sort of refining to make fuel usable for locomotives and ship burners, the Associated Oil Company decided to construct a topping plant called the Avon Refinery (now the Golden Eagle Refinery) in 1913. Until then the company had produced and marketed fuel oils only and with the completion of the refinery were launched into the manufacture of gasoline and kerosene.
Also in 1913, unfavorable commuting conditions prompted the Associated Oil Company to build a company town called the Avon Village and by 1920 consisted of 65 cottages, a one-room schoolhouse, worker's bunkhouse, a dining hall and a clubhouse that included an indoor swimming pool, auditorium and a two-lane bowling alley which serves today as the Refinery Museum. A branch of the United States Post Office was established and named the Associated Post Office.
Associated purchased the Amoroco Terminal in 1923 from the American-Oriental Refining Company (AMORCO) and consisted of a topping plant, storage tanks, a wharf, pipelines and pumping equipment. The next year a clarifying plant and an Edeleanu liquid dioxide plant, the first in the United States, were constructed at the Avon Refinery. The quality of the oils treated was so excellent that it prompted the U.S. Navy to purchase these lubricants exclusively from the Avon Refinery for many years. By 1925 the Avon Refinery became the first West Coast refinery to produce gasoline with tetraethyl lead additive and in 1926 the tanker ship S.S. McKittrick received the first crude receipt at the Amorco Wharf. The Southern Pacific Company bought the terminal in 1929 to construct a new railroad drawbridge a year later.
In 1926, the Associated Oil Company stock owned by the Pacific Oil Company,[1] which was formed by Southern Pacific Company to handle their oil interests,[1] was sold to a new holding company, the Tide Water Associated Oil Company, which also acquired the Tide Water Oil Company at the same time. Standard Oil of New Jersey, the largest stockholder in Tide Water at the time, later formed a holding company, Mission Corporation, to hold the stocks of Tide Water and Associated. In 1931, the Associated Oil Company joined with Mitsubishi to establish Mitsubishi Oil in Japan, before establishing the Manchurian Oil Company in Dalian under the Japanese wartime regime in 1934.[2]
Beginning in 1934, Associated Oil Company commissioned a series of photographs to be taken to record the progress of construction on the Golden Gate Bridge and San-Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge projects. The projects were of special interest to the Associated Oil Company because they provided Flying A Gasoline and Cycol Motor Oil almost entirely for the projects.
