IOP History Continued

At this time the Midwest was embracing change, as with the rest of the country, the advent of the automobile and it's dramatic effect on industry, agriculture and every day life called for increased use of petroleum products. The Welch's and Illinois Oil Company soon learned how important a "Square Deal" could be. F.P. refused to waiver on offering "Good products with good service at a fair price."  Those three items in one package were hard to find in the early 1900's. Local farmers and industrialists soon learned that Illinois Oil Company could be trusted and stockholders and business grew rapidly.

Supply and Demand for quality goods and services moved the company to do more for themselves in house. In 1911 the Armstrong Steel Drum Co. was purchased and J.W. Armstrong became Vice President and Factory Manager of Illinois Oil Company. J.W. was a skilled mechanical engineer and chemist and through his direction and management a paint factory and sheet metal factory were built. Farmers and local industry soon had quality Illinois Oil Paints under the brand names Premier and County Fair Paints as well as hard to come by quality drums, gas tanks, fuel oil tanks, lube tanks, furnace oil tanks and many accessory metal products manufactured and serviced locally at a fair price.

Great growth and need continued and in 1915 Illinois Oil Co. purchased it's own oil refinery in Cushing Oklahoma. By 1917 the site included bubble towers, condensers, agitators, a tank farm and new pipe stills bringing capacity up to 2,500 barrels a day. By 1919 it had increased capacity to over 5,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Allowing for a quality straight run gasoline by the name of "Torpedo Gasoline" that joined Welch Motor Oils, Golden Auto Oil ("More Miles & More Smiles") and a full line of high grade greases to help round out a full product line.