Texas Company Refinery at Port Arthur (Port Arthur Works)

The Texaco history site says the first land for the refinery, 25.1 acres at the end of Houston Avenue, was bought on February 18, 1902, and that Port Arthur Terminal opened on September 29, 1902. The first barge shipment left in late September for the Magnolia Plantation on the lower Mississippi. The Sour Lake test well that came in on January 8, 1903, saved the company from bankruptcy, and asphalt was the first product sold, in February 1903. The name Texaco began as a telegraph address in Arnold Schlaet's New York office.

What the plaque says

Texas Company Refinery at Port Arthur (Port Arthur Works) The Beaumont-Port Arthur area was booming at the turn of the 20th century after the January 10, 1901, discovery of oil at Spindletop. The Texas Fuel Company was formed on March 28, 1901, by J. S. Cullinan, a Pennsylvania oilman and veteran of the Corsicana fields; Arnold Schlaet, manager of the oil business of the New York-based Lapham Brothers; and former Texas governor James S. Hogg and his partner, J. W. Swayne. The company purchased a small tract of land on this site in February 1902, and was reorganized as the Texas Company in April. The Port Arthur Works began operations with two tar stills in April 1903. The refinery's first crude still started on Nov.13, 1903, producing 1,000 barrels per day, primarily of fuel oil. Kerosene and gasoline were manufactured beginning in 1904. Such innovations as the thermal cracking process, which increased the quantity of gasoline produced from a barrel of crude oil, were perfected here. By the end of 1940, the Port Arthur Works had grown to about 5,000 acres and 3,897 employees. It processed 35,214,000 barrels of crude in 1941. The Texas Company participated in the World War II effort by exchanging technologies with other oil and gas companies to perfect the new fluid catalytic cracking process to produce high-octane gasoline and feedstock for the new synthetic rubber process. World War II also increased the requirements of all lubricating oils. The Texas Company became Texaco in 1959, and the Port Arthur plant grew throughout the second half of the 20th century as Texaco became one of the world's largest oil companies. It is the only surviving company of the many created during the Spindletop oil boom. (2000)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of the Gulf Coast — 1.5 mi
  Port Arthur's regional museum in a former bank building: fossils, Native Americans, the petroleum story, a 125-foot history mural and Halls of Fame for musicians, athletes and artists.
• Sabine Pass Battleground State Historic Site — 12 mi
  A waterfront park at the mouth of the Sabine where the earthwork of Fort Griffin stood, with a Dowling statue, a Union memorial, wartime magazines and a walkway for fishing.
• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 13 mi
  A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.
• Sea Rim State Park — 14 mi
  Texas's far southeast corner: nearly two miles of Gulf shoreline backed by 4,000 acres of marsh, reached by boardwalk or paddle trail, rebuilt after Rita and Ike.

More markers nearby

• Rock Island Baptist Church — 1.5 mi
• Birthplace of Babe Didrikson Zaharias — 1.5 mi
• Francis John (Frank) Trost (June 24, 1868 - August 4, 1944) — 1.5 mi
• Arthur Edward Stilwell — 1.5 mi