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The Beaumont-Port Arthur area was booming at the turn of the 20th century after the January 10, 1901, discovery of oil at Spindletop. The Texas Fuel Company was formed on March 28, 1901, by J. S. Cullinan, a Pennsylvania oilman and veteran of the Corsicana fields; Arnold Schlaet, manager of the oil business of the New York-based Lapham Brothers; and former Texas governor James S. Hogg and his partner, J. W. Swayne. The company purchased a small tract of land on this site in February 1902, and was reorganized as the Texas Company in April. The Port Arthur Works began operations with two tar stills in April 1903. The refinery's first crude still started on Nov.13, 1903, producing 1,000 barrels per day, primarily of fuel oil. Kerosene and gasoline were manufactured beginning in 1904. Such innovations as the thermal cracking process, which increased the quantity of gasoline produced from a barrel of crude oil, were perfected here. By the end of 1940, the Port Arthur Works had grown to about 5,000 acres and 3,897 employees. It processed 35,214,000 barrels of crude in 1941. The Texas Company participated in the World War II effort by exchanging technologies with other oil and gas companies to perfect the new fluid catalytic cracking process to produce high-octane gasoline and feedstock for the new synthetic rubber process. World War II also increased the requirements of all lubricating oils. The Texas Company became Texaco in 1959, and the Port Arthur plant grew throughout the second half of the 20th century as Texaco became one of the world's largest oil companies. It is the only surviving company of the many created during the Spindletop oil boom. (2000) |
