Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

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Groceteria
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Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

Post by Groceteria »

Brian Lutz wrote:Elsewhere in Bellevue, there's also a single Standard station operating as well (which got upgraded not too long ago to the current Chevron design package but still retained the Standard name.) Every other one I know of around here is a Chevron.
That's for trademark purposes; it allows them to retain claim to the Standard Oil trademark in the areas where they owned it after the original Standard Oil breakup. There's one in on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco for the same reason. FYI, one of the contributors to this board (and to the site), carolinatraveler, has written a very good book on that subject, although I believe it is currently out of print. I happened across it about twelve years ago in a bookstore in Detroit and let out a little shriek, because I'd been looking for a book on that precise subject for years.

Standard Oil: The First 125 Years
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Re: Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

Post by Jeff »

For the longest time, the Chevron on Atlantic and Riggin was branded as Standard. This finally changed in the 90's when they remodeled the station, then completely tore it down not too long ago for a full remodel.
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Re: Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

Post by J-Man »

There's a Standard station in Las Vegas, on Tropicana just west of I-15. It has the newest Chevron logo, but with "Standard" (in the current Chevron font) on the signs where Chevron would normally be placed. I wonder if there's a requirement that they have at least one legacy Standard-branded station in each state in which they operate?
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Re: Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

Post by Groceteria »

J-Man wrote: I wonder if there's a requirement that they have at least one legacy Standard-branded station in each state in which they operate?
That's pretty much exactly it. I don't think it's a legal requirement per se, but it's a means of demonstrating that the trademark/brand is actively being used in each state or region. Unused, undefended trademarks revert to the public domain after some passage of time.
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Re: Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

Post by Brian Lutz »

The one in Bellevue is using the current Chevron logo with the Standard name instead of Chevron on it, I'll see about going to take a couple of pictures of it in the next couple of days if I get the chance.
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Re: Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

Post by Jeff »

Brian Lutz wrote:The one in Bellevue is using the current Chevron logo with the Standard name instead of Chevron on it, I'll see about going to take a couple of pictures of it in the next couple of days if I get the chance.
that's how the one in Monterey Park was, only difference, except for the sign, everything had the Chevron name.
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Re: Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

Post by carolinatraveler »

Attached is an advertisement that Chevron put out several years ago about the remaining Standard/Chevron sites. This is done to protect the Standard name, probably the most fought over trademark in history. Hope this helps explain the situation.

Wayne Henderson

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Chevron Standard.jpg
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Re: Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

Post by buckhead »

I don't know where the Georgia location is now, but for many years it was the Standard station on the southeast corner of Akers Mill Road and Cobb Parkway (US 41) near Cumberland Mall in Cobb County. It was torn down years ago, and briefly had a Krispy Kreme on the edge of the property. I, too, would like to know the current location of each trademark protection Standard station, especially in the old KYSO trade area.
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Re: Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

Post by runchadrun »

Groceteria wrote:Unused, undefended trademarks revert to the public domain after some passage of time.
As Albertsons learned the hard way over the Lucky name...
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Re: Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

Post by Brian Lutz »

carolinatraveler wrote:Attached is an advertisement that Chevron put out several years ago about the remaining Standard/Chevron sites. This is done to protect the Standard name, probably the most fought over trademark in history. Hope this helps explain the situation.

Wayne Henderson

for gasoline marketing history, check out Petroleum Collectibles Monthly at
http://www.pcmpublishing.com
Mind if I borrow a copy of that image? I'd like to put together a post on my Blog on the subject.
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Re: Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

Post by Dean »

runchadrun wrote:
Groceteria wrote:Unused, undefended trademarks revert to the public domain after some passage of time.
As Albertsons learned the hard way over the Lucky name...
Honestly, this was the first example that came to mind!

Wayne, I seem to recall from the 70s that Standard Oil would be listed/painted/displayed upon the service island's "cross beam", with Chevron on the main signs. Am I remembering correctly?

Also, the sites listed...are these corporately owned, or franchised?

Thanks for the info...as I believe I drove by one a time back...and wondered what was up!
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Re: Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

Post by buckhead »

Dean wrote: ... I seem to recall from the 70s that Standard Oil would be listed/painted/displayed upon the service island's "cross beam", with Chevron on the main signs. Am I remembering correctly?
I can speak from some of my observations of stations in the 60s and 70s of Standard Oil of Kentucky (KYSO) stations that ultimately became part of Chevron/Standard Oil of California (SOCAL). The KYSO stations were located in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Mississippi (Tennessee was not in the territory served by the company).

KYSO stations, had their own distinctive station deisgns and signage prior to acquistion by SOCAL/Chevron. The stations usually had the words Standard or Standard Oil Company on the the exterior walls somewhere, often above the service bay entrance. The curb sign was usually some variation of their later sign which was more or less a bar with a semicircular bulge on the bottom...the word "Standard" in the bar above the word "Oil" in the lower bulge. A red stripe went around the border of the sign...the words were in white on navy blue background (early years) and navy blue on white back ground (later years). The tall signs adjacent to major highways just said "Standard" typically.

After the acquisition, very few changes were made at the stations, but once SOCAL came out with their updated logo and signage (2 stripe in the chevron rather than 3), some of those changes were incorporated in former KYSO stations. I never saw the older style Standard signage that appeared in SOCAL territory (3 stripes chevron) applied to any KYSO stations, although that does not mean there were not some. Anyway, at this time, the Chevron name had been in use for many years in Tennessee (and maybe Virginia) which were adjacent to KYSO territory. This old signage was similar to the SOCAL signage but of course did not use the word Standard at all...just the word "Chevron" and the chevron emblem shield (oftentimes with additional words above the emblem saying "Chevron Dealer"). Typical curbside signage was the Chevron emblem shield alone (with small wording "Chevron Dealer" at the top of the sign). The tall signs adjacent to major highway exits just said "Chevron" typically or they had the Chevron emblem shield affixed to either the left or right of the word "Chevron" (usually white letters on dark blue background, but sometimes white letters on red background. In various marketing areas, during the era of the older 3-stripe chevron shield, the significance of the red or blue color background around the words "Chevron Dealer" or "Standard.." at the top of the chevron stripes (and to a degree as the background color of the horizontal bar with the "Chevron" name had some significance, but I'm not versed on that.

When the new 2-stripe chevron emblem was rolled out and older stations were updated or newer ones built, KYSO stations emblazoned the word "Standard" on their canopies and used the 2-stripe chevron emblem but with the solo word "Standard" placed above the actuall chevron stripes since these stations were still technically in territory that went by the Standard Oil of Kentucky name. Before the creation of Chevron Oil as the practical operating name for all of the companies in the USA that were in their corporate stable, some stations had begun to utilize the 2-stripe chevron logo shield but NOW with the word "Chevron" in place of the word "Standard." The new Chevron logo was being phased in on the curb sigans, pumps, etc. "Standard" was still however used on the canopies. In situations were stations used a combined sign (with the chevron emblem shield placed to one sign of the company name "Standard") the earliest versions used "Standard" on both components, later incorporated the word "Chevron" above the chevron in the shield itself but again used the word "Standard" to the side. These combined signs were often featured at the highest point of the station as well as on the tall signs adjacent to major highway exits. After the "Standard" name was retired, the word "Chevron" was used on the shields, canopies, etc., everywhere as a marking on the station where "Standard" formerly had been used. It took several years for the last vestiges of the "Standard" name to be swtiched over, but new station designs and architectural treatments were the same as those being used in California and other former SOCAL states.

One more aside, neither KYSO or SOCAL operated in North Carolina or South Carolina until recently, but after ARCO began to withdraw from those markets (70s), SOCAL/Chevron acquired a number of the stations to get a foothold there. I'm not sure if they ever attempted to use the "Standard" name but I'm pretty sure they only went with "Chevron" since those states were prime markets for ESSO (Standard Oil of New Jersey) and the conflict on using the name "Standard" was reserved for them. Only a few years earlier (in the latter part of the 60s) KYSO had forced ESSO to quit using that brand name in KYSO territory since ESSO was the phonetic representation of the acronym for "Standard Oil", i.e. S-O, and infringed on the trademark rights of KYSO.

Standard Oil of Texas, also controlled by SOCAL may have had similar issues with branding and ultimate use of the Chevron name.


[Edited to correct some typing errors and add information]
Last edited by buckhead on 18 Feb 2009 01:20, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

Post by carolinatraveler »

With the breakup of Standard Oil in 1911, each of the surviving companies that marketed petroleum products was assigned a territory in which they were allowed to use the Standard name and certain other trademarks associated with Standard from before the breakup, including Red Crown or Crown Gasoline and Polarine Motor Oils.
Along the eastern seaboard, Standard Oil of New Jersey (Esso/later Exxon) was assigned to market in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Two subsidiary companies were part of SONJ, including Standard of Pennsylvania (marketing in Pennsylvania) and Standard of Louisiana (marketing in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana). Through purchases in the early 1930s SONJ moved into New England, but this dominant marketer was barred from direct operations in Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and Kentucky.
Standard Oil Company of Kentucky(KYSO), one of the surviving Standard siblings, was assigned marketing in those five southern states. Without production or refining capabilities, KYSO acted as a large gasoline "jobber", distributing products manufactured by others, particularly gasoline refined by Esso and lubricants by Mobil. In 1961, however, Standard Oil of California purchased Standard of Kentucky, and as quickly as possible dropped all of the purchasing agreements with Esso and Mobil. Kyso stations were reimaged between 1962 and 1964 and Kyso "Crown" and "Crown Extra" were replaced by Chevron and Chevron Supreme gasolines. Station brand identification retained the "Standard Oil" signage as always, although the colors were reversed from the previous logo.
This arrangement was not unusual for Chevron. On the west coast Standard of California had owned and operated "Standard" stations since 1911, and had sold gasolines branded "Chevron" through these stations since the end of World War II. Standard's dealer network, not the company owned stations, began in the 1920s under originally the "Standard / Authorized Dealer" network and, as they expanded outside of their assigned territory in the 1930s, under the name "Calso". The Chevron name came from the hallmark logo first used in the early 1930s, and was applied only to gasolines at first. The Calso network in the Rocky Mountain West changed to "Chevron Stations" in 1946, as were the Standard dealer sites, company owned stations retained the Standard name; also in 1946 Calso was introduced as a jobber brand in the northeast and stations were eventually found from Maine to eastern Virginia until 1959, when those stations branded Chevron.
The Kyso purchase put Standard of California, through their new subsidiary, Standard of Kentucky, in a growing market in the 1960s. To tie in to existing marketing areas, Standard of Kentucky began operating some stations in Tennessee under the Chevron (not Standard) name, as well as around Bristol, Virginia. They signed on a jobber with some 40 stations in South Carolina in the 1970s (Spartan Petroleum, formerly an Atlantic jobber) that put the Chevron sign in NC for the first time, on I-26 at Naples, NC in 1977. By this time Standard stations in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Kentucky were displaying the "two stripe" Chevron sign with the word "Standard" across the top, as were genuine company owned stations in Standard of California's native territory out west. Identical signs displaying Chevron were used in the west for dealer stations and in all states where the Standard name was not allowed. By the early 1980s all of the Standard branding was phased out, except for the token stations listed in this thread, and the Chevron name was used otherwise universally.
I was in Virginia when Chevron purchased Gulf in 1984. During the summer of 1985 Gulf stations in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and some border areas were all converted to Chevron. We photographed a number of thse sites being reimaged at that time. Shortly after that Chevron (former Calso) and Gulf stations in the northeast were sold off piecemeal and to Cumberland Farms, who still operates under the Gulf name up north. Gulf in the south, in the former Kyso area, was sold to BP to prevent anti-trust action.

For more information about the relationships of the Standard siblings, I recommend my book "Standard Oil, The First 125 years". It is out of print, but I do see them on eBay and Amazon and in used book stores.

Wayne Henderson
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Re: Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

Post by Brian Lutz »

I just went back and looked in my files, and I see that the Chevron station that opened along with Totem Lake Mall in Kirkland in 1973 was listed with the name "Standard Oil Company of California" on a map of the mall that ran in a newspaper ad.

I also went into the Eastside Heritage Center collection (which has a bunch of pictures in it someone took of downtown Bellevue circa 1969) since I recall seeing a number of old gas station pictures, and I found that it contains a couple of different pictures of Standard stations located in Bellevue:

A Standard station in Bellevue
A picture showing with a different Standard station nearby (somewhat in the background

The collection even has a much older photo from 1930 showing a "Standard Oil Products" station (Presumably CALSO) from before the Chevron brand was established.)

Link

Edit: One more picture that might be of interest:

A 1965 photo showing a Chevron branded independent station's sign
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Re: Chveron Stations Operating as Standard Oil

Post by Groceteria »

carolinatraveler wrote:For more information about the relationships of the Standard siblings, I recommend my book "Standard Oil, The First 125 years". It is out of print, but I do see them on eBay and Amazon and in used book stores.
FYI to all, there's a link to the Amazon entry for Wayne's book in the first post of this thread.
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