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Union Oil Company of California (UNOCAL) records
LSC.0449
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Description
The Union Oil Company of California was
a major petroleum producer, refiner, and marketer incorporated in Santa Paula, California,
on October 17, 1890. The company, later reorganized under the Unocal Corporation, remained
one of America's oldest and largest independent enterprises, with operations throughout
southern California, the United States, and Southeast Asia, up until its 2005 merger with
the ChevronTexaco Corporation. Photographs, negatives, and employee publications comprise
the bulk of the collection, but the records also contain early field and gauge reports,
financial ledgers, correspondence to and from the company's founders, lease and stock
agreements, annual reports to stockholders, speeches and remarks by company executives,
films, and various memorabilia.
Background
The Union Oil Company of California was incorporated on October 17, 1890, in Santa Paula,
California, after founding members Lyman Stewart, Wallace L. Hardison, and Thomas Bard
merged their respective California oil interests: Hardison and Stewart Oil, Sespe Oil, and
Torrey Canyon Oil. Union's early years were marked by struggle and infighting between the
company's founders; nonetheless, its first producing wells accounted for nearly one-fourth
of California's oil production. By 1900, Lyman Stewart remained the sole founder still with
the company, and under his auspices, and those of the Stewart family, Union Oil began its
first real era of rapid growth. In late 1900, Stewart moved the company's offices to Los
Angeles, and from there Union Oil quickly expanded south through Los Angeles County and
beyond. In response to the popularization of the automobile and the demand for motor oil,
which the company itself had helped to foster by marketing oil fuel as a viable energy
source, Union began to open service stations up and down southern California, augmenting
these stations with twenty established ones acquired from the purchase of Pinal Dome Oil in
1917. With this distribution network and the introduction of its iconic 76 retail brand,
Union Oil, or Union 76 as it came to be known, helped to shape both southern California's
landscape and its history.
Extent
45 Linear Feet
(90 boxes, 52 cartons)
Restrictions
Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All
other rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the
responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the
copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not
hold the copyright.
Availability
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in
advance using the request button located on this page.
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