Oil company maps – North America – B
Advertising itself as "America's oldest refiner", the Barnsdall company was at one time one of the largest marketers in the midwest using its "B Square" brand.
This beautiful map was issued by Barnsdall for the Century of Progress Worlds Fair that took place in Chicago during 1933. Barnsdall's other maps from this year bore a similar design. However, only the Worlds Fair map was printed with a more expensive multicolor process.
Reorganized during the Depression, the Barnsdall company company emerged as Bareco and in the early Fifties exited the gasoline business, selling off their marketing to Mid-Continent Petroleum, which rebranded the stations as D-X.
The British American Oil Co. was a large refiner/marketer operating coast to coast in Canada. This map was issued in 1950 as BA was in the process of changing their logo.
This colorful map is typical of the regional motif series of maps issued by British American during the Fifties. This map is dated 1954.
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This 1968 map was issued after Gulf acquired a controlling interest in Canada's British American Oil Company and shows both BA and Gulf logos. This map was part of a series showing classic automobiles which continued after BA stations were rebranded to Gulf in the early Seventies.
Bay Petroleum was based in the western plains states. This map dates from 1959. The company was later acquired by Tenneco (see below).
When the Houston-based Tenneco company acquired Bay Petroleum in 1961, it added the well-known Bay name to Tenneco's own fairly recent entry into petroleum retailing. The resulting maps bore the Bay logo on one cover and the Tenneco logo on the other cover. The image depicted is that of the two covers of the same map.
Owned by Dow Chemical, this company was based in Bay City, Michigan and operated a small refining and marketing operation in Michigan until the early Eighties. Bay-Dow, as the company is sometimes known, was unrelated to the more well-known Denver-based Bay operation (see above).
This map was issued in the late Sixties by the Michigan-based Bay-Dow company. The map itself is the official state-issued map of Michigan with Bay's own cover in place of that used by the state.
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The Beacon brand has been used in California since the Thirties. The company was acquired by Ultramar in the early Eighties and still markets petroleum in California under the Beacon name. This map was issued in 1969.
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Baltimore-area distributor Sherwood Brothers branded their marketing operations under the Betholine Richfield and Betholine Sinclair names until the Fifties. This Betholine Richfield map dates from 1941.
Baltimore-based jobber Sherwood Brothers distributed products for both Richfield and Sinclair (which were related anyway) and branded its stations with the Betholine Richfield and Betholine Sinclair names. This Betholine Sinclair map dates from 1949.
The Billups Bros. company was based in Greenwood, Mississippi and marketed in the southeast and south central states.
This 1966 Billups map was issued after Billups operations were acquired by Signal Oil and joined the company's Southland Oil marketing in the southeast and Hancock, Norwalk, and Regal marketing in the southwest and California. Note the common design in the maps issued for the company's three operations during the mid-Sixties.
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Bonded Oil Company of Springfield, Ohio issued this map in 1952. The Indiana-based Gaseteria Bonded operation was not related to the Ohio company, though the two companies had a close relationship.
I'm not certain which of the two Bonded companies issued this map. Can anybody help?
This map was issued by the Ohio-based Bonded company during the early Seventies. Though acquired by Marathon in the late Seventies, the Bonded brand remains in limited use today.
The Boron Oil Company was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company of Ohio (Sohio). For some time Sohio had successfully marketed gasoline with a boron additive. Prohibited from using the Sohio name outside its assigned territory of Ohio, the company adopted the Boron name when it expanded retailing outside Ohio in 1956.
One of the more well-known names in petroleum production and marketing worldwide, British Petroleum entered the Canadian market in the late Fifties, and subsequently expanded its Canadian presence with the 1967 acquisition of Supertest.
Supertest advertised itself as "Canada's All-Canadian Company", and operated in Ontario and Quebec. In 1967, Supertest was acquired by BP Canada. This 1973 map shows both BP and Supertest brands prior to all stations being rebranded as BP.
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The Brilliant Bronze name was one of the secondary brands operated in the midwest by the Johnson Oil Refining Co. of Chicago, Illinois. The company was purchased by Gaseteria in 1956; with Gaseteria's acquisition by Standard of New Jersey the following year, stations were rebranded to the Oklahoma name (which subsequently became Enco in 1961).
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