Gulf Oil Corp.

Major U.S. petroleum company. Gulf Oil began with an oil gusher near Beaumont, Texas, in 1901 and was incorporated in 1907. The oil well was developed by the Pittsburgh Mellon family (see Andrew W. Mellon). Gulf became the first oil company to enter the consumer gasoline market when it opened a drive-in filling station in Pittsburgh in 1913. By 1923 the Gulf refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, was the largest in the world. Gulf Oil continued to develop oil fields in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, as well as in Mexico and Venezuela. In 1984 it was bought by Chevron, another oil company.

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