277

(PETROLIANA -- AMERICAN BUSINESS.)

The Pure Oil Company.

Large archive of Pure Oil service station architectural and engineering blueprint drawings.

[Chicago, late 1920s-1960s]
Over 200 sheets of mostly hand-drafted diagrams, schematics, and finished drawings (45 mechanically reproduced on oilcloth or acetate); sizes vary but most 12x36 inches; generally good condition, some of the earlier sheets on more friable paper with chips and tears; additionally including a pleasing framed oil painting signed "D. Brown" [circa late-1950s]. 

- 1920s: five 12x36-inch elevation plans to a "lubridome" service station at Grand Avenue and Oxford Street, St. Paul, Minnesota. 

- 1930s: design for the Pure Oil Weathervane; 5 diagrams of the company's "English Cottage" style stations with detailed instructions for the copper and iron finishings and paint schemes; twenty-nine 12x36-inch station plans. 

- 1940s: plans to a station's tire rack, installation diagram to a sub-surface airport fuel pump, and pole footing diagrams to a 6-foot-in-diameter company logo sign; six 12x36-inch station plans. 

- 1950s: several paint charts for fuel dispensing pumps, steel panel and neon tubing company sign layouts, pole sign measurements and footing details, a sketched perspective for a "Standard English" service station; sixty-seven 12x36-inch station plans. 

- 1960s: 6 truck stop perspective drawings (4 graphite base sketches, 2 mimeographed copies finished in crayon) with 4 layout plans corresponding to those designs, a 21-sheet series from 1961 completely outlining the campus layout, foundation, floor plans, grading elevation, electrical work, etc. for the construction of a Dean Powers Truck Terminal in Rockford, Illinois; fifty 12x36-inch station plans. 

- A single late sheet in the archive is a fascinating large mechanical diagram of a "Do It Yourself Oil Changer" machine system from 1979, a timeline which coincides with the introduction of quick-change franchise companies such as Jiffy Lube. 

- Together with 2 Pure-branded binders holding collections of the company's marketing operations manuals, a mostly hand-written ledger accounting Pure's service station drawings, and a 12x14-inch "Pure Firebird Regular" dualite pump plate circa 1960s. 

This archive was kept by long-time Pure Oil Company engineer and designer, William E. Ridgeway, of Chicago. 

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