Nation Oil Pump & Tank Company

National Oil Pump & Tank Company

Dayton, Ohio
According to Dayton, Ohio City Directories,

1930 #30 Apex clock face fuel dispenser

The National Oil Pump and Tank Company started in 1907. I found in one of my searches for the company that Dayton, Ohio city directories list Joseph N. Boesch as the president and treasurer of the company. The directories also show that in 1924, the company name had been changed to National Recording Pump Company and again in the 1930’s they would change their name one last time to the National Pump Corporation.

The National Pump Corporation would mark their place in history mainly because of their unique designs and their simplicity of their pumps that they produced during the late teens, and throughout the 1920s. The National Oil Pump and Tank Company were able to fend off the financial struggles that many companies were not able too. Thus National survived the depression. Mainly because they were small and were able to keep their assets in check, it also help that National produced a pump that their customer liked. They were simple in design and served their purpose for what they were need for. Many have become famous with collectors such as the Duplex, the Simplex, and the Apex. The National “Visibowls” are considered to be some of the best-looking visible ever made.

#30 Apex clock face

Other than the unique designs and the simplicity of their pumps, the company was just another pump company who made fuel dispensers, grease and oil dispensers and air-compressors. They would apply metering system designed by other companies, and then improving on those designs then apply it to their own pumps. National decided to move their offices too Cincinnati, Ohio in 1936. National would keep their manufacturing operations in Dayton Ohio. National was a small pump manufacturer and when the Tokheim Corporation approached them in 1948, National Pump Corporation would become part of Tokheim. In the years that followed Tokheim would use the National name on some of their pumps, but in the end the name National would be dropped from the companies’ fuel dispenser.  The one thing Tokheim corporation would keep was the national metering system it was of better design than what they were using and you can still find the national metering systems in Tokheim pumps today.

Below are just a few of the pumps that the National pump corporation designed and used. The Simplex, Duplex, Apex, Visibowls, and A series pumps, (A, A-1 and A-38) are highly sought after pumps.

Early pump models would feature the visible pump style, but it was the #70 10 gallon Visibowls was a multisided pump with six sides. That many consider this pump as a fancy pump. It featured a leaf design under the upper casting section that holds the visible in place. Arrows move up and down the inside of the cylinder to show the gallons being dispensed. This pump is a rare pump and highly prized in anyone’s collection. 

The #50 Duplex printer, this pump would print out the sale on a piece of paper it was manufactured in 1921. The pump was made of cast iron and would feature a clock face.

The #51 Duplex was a non printer, it too would feature a clock face and be made from cast iron.  

The # 61 Simplex was manufactured in 1925 and would also feature a cast iron body in the shape of an octagon and it also had a clock face.

The National #30 Apex clock face pump that is featured here at the Schwanke museum was built in 1930’s. It has a six foot gas hose with a banana nozzle and has a universal sight glass so that gas is made visible so the customer can see that the gas they were pumping into their car was clean.

Dirty gas was common in the early twentieth century, this was the reason many gas stations had visible pumps or pumps that feature a cylinder in which the gas could be seen.

 History is being lost every day and companies like the National Pump Corporation is one of the many pump manufacturing company that has been lost to history. Sure I had to dig a little bit to find the information that I have found. But there are so many things we have in the museum that I have not been able to find any information on. One day I going to photograph and post the picture on the blog, then if anyone has any information on any of those items it would make me happy and I will take that information and post it on this blog. Plus if you have any more information about items I have already posted let me know or if I have posted something in error. That way I can correct the information I posted.

The original black and orange Pillips logo

Phillips Petroleum Company

 Phillips Petroleum Company was founded in 1917 by Frank and L.E. Phillips of Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Frank and L.E. Phillips they were considered two of the original experts in gas. They started prospecting for oil in 1903. Like most gas companies of the time Phillips became a supplier of gas, kerosene, fuel oil and refined oil products. The Phillips brother’s wanted their product to be different from their competitors. So they went about trying to improve the quality of their product. As history tells us the brother in 1927 took their newly developed high-octane gasoline and tested it on the mother of all roads Highway 66. While test driving their new formula they were able to reach a cruising speed of 66 mph. this was an achievement that no other company at the time was able to achieve. Inspired by the road signs and the ability to reach 66 mph, Phillips decided to name their new fuel Phillips 66.

I know I could leave it at this point proclaiming that is the history of Phillips 66 but there is so much more than just that.

Excited by their new product the brother decided to expand their business so on November 19, 1927, the Phillips brothers opened their first service station in Wichita, Kansas. The Phillips brother’s new gas was the talk of the county then the state people traveled from around the country to try their new fuel. So in 1929 the Phillips brothers would open their second service station and it would become their first station built in Texas in the city of McLean. Since then both stations have been preserved by local historical societies as historical sites and are visited by thousands of people every year.  

Taking inspiration from the new Highway 66 where they tested their new gasoline the Phillips brothers decided to design their shield log it was created for its link to the highway of the same number. The new logo was introduced in 1930, and it would have a black and orange color scheme and this logo would last for 30 years. In 1959, Phillips introduced a revised version of the shield in red, white and black, a color scheme still used by ConocoPhillips for the brand.

The New Logo used still today

One of the perks for stopping at a Phillips 66 during the late 1930s until the 1960s, Phillips would employ registered nurses as "Highway Hostesses," these nurses would make periodic and random visits to the Phillips 66 stations within their regions and these women would inspect the station restroom facilities to ensure they were well cleaned and stocked. These registered nurses or Highway Hostesses would also serve as ambassadors for the company by directing motorists to suitable dining and lodging facilities. Thus providing tourism for the cities that had a Phillips 66 station.

The Phillips Petroleum Company continue to introduce new products they were among the first oil companies to introduce a multi-grade motor oil, TropArtic, in 1954. These motor oils were designed to be used in automobile engines year-round. Unlike single grades which are recommended to meet variances in weather.

With their market expanding, Phillips Petroleum Company would work out a purchase agreement to add the Utah-based Wasatch Oil Company in 1946; and this would bring the Phillips 66 brand to the northern Rocky Mountain States and would reach as far as the eastern portions of Oregon and Washington. Phillips Petroleum Company would enter into the West Coast market in 1966, by purchasing Tidewater Oil Company's refining and marketing properties. Tidewater Oil company was the owners of the Flying A distributorships and after the buyout they would have to rebrand all of the service stations to Phillips 66. Phillips also had gasoline stations in Canada's western provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan under the name Pacific 66 until the late 1970s.

With their growing market share, Phillips Petroleum Company would become the nation's second oil company, after Texaco, to sell and market gasoline in all 50 states, by opening a Phillips 66 station in Anchorage, Alaska in 1967. However the Phillips' experiment in 50-state marketing was short-lived and the company would withdraw from the gasoline marketing in the northeastern U.S. in 1972. Still they are slowly returning to that market, there are Phillips 66 in Westport, Connecticut and Hadley, Massachusetts. In 1976, the Phillips Petroleum Company would sell their Tidewater properties on the West Coast to another company, the Oil & Shale Corporation (Tosco). Today, Phillips 66 primarily operates out of the Midwest and Southwest.

Still today, Phillips 66 stations are well represented at toll road concession areas in Kansas and Oklahoma.

The Phillips Petroleum Company used many advertising slogan in the mid-1970s , one of the slogans was "The Performance Company," not only promoting the performance of Phillips 66 gasoline and other petroleum products, they were also innovations with asphaltic materials, fertilizers and other non-automotive products. Other slogans through the years have included "Go First-Class — Go Phillips 66", "The Gasoline That Won the West", "Good Things for Cars and the People Who Drive Them" and "At Phillips 66 It's Performance That Counts".

Phillips Petroleum Company would purchase Tosco in 2000, and this would include the Circle K convenience stores and Union 76 gasolines. Phillips Petroleum Company would merge with Conoco to form ConocoPhillips, in 2002. The merged companies would go on to market their gasoline and other products under the Phillips 66, Conoco and 76 brands. ConocoPhillips would also go on to license the Phillips 66 brand to Suncor Energy for its Phillips 66 branded stations in Colorado.

For a small company that was started by two brothers in 1917, with a passion to produce a cleaner more efficient fuel. The Phillips Petroleum Company has come a long way to be one of the great petroleum producers to date.