In 1914 in Columbus, Ohio, Fletcher Heath and Beman Dawes began the Ohio Cities Gasoline Co., which constructed its first oil refinery in West Virginia. In 1926, six years after the name of the corporate was changed to Pure Oil, its headquarters had been moved to Chicago. From their places of work in the Pure Oil building, company executives oversaw oil wells and refineries located in Ohio, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Texas. A brand new analysis laboratory opened in 1950 in suburban Crystal Lake; finally, Pure Oil operated a refinery at Lemont, Illinois. The corporate’s annual gross sales grew from about $eighty million within the late 1920s to over $700 million by the early 1960s, when it ranked among the 100 largest industrial companies within the United States and employed greater than 1,000 folks within the Chicago space. In 1965, Pure Oil was bought by the Union Oil Co. of California. As late because the mid-1970s, about 2,200 Chicago-space residents were employed by Union Oil.

This entry is part of the Encyclopedia’s Dictionary of Leading Chicago Companies (1820-2000) that was ready by Mark R. Wilson, with extra contributions from Stephen R. Porter and Janice L.