University of Wyoming
Sinclair Oil Corporation was an American petroleum corporation founded by Harry F. Sinclair in 1916 as the Sinclair Oil and Refining Corporation by combining the assets of eleven small petroleum companies. Originally a New York corporation, Sinclair Oil reincorporated in Wyoming in 1976. It was ranked on the list of largest privately-owned corporations in the U.S. It owned and operated refineries, gas stations, hotels, a ski resort, and a cattle ranch.
The Sinclair Pipe Line Company was originally incorporated in 1916 as the Sinclair-Cudahy Pipe Line Company. It underwent a number of reorganizations, absorbing Prairie Oil and Gas Company in 1932, until, along with Sinclair Oil Corporation, it was acquired by Atlantic Richfield Company in 1969. Sinclair Pipe Line Company controlled more than thirteen thousand miles of pipeline, including crude oil lines from Texas, New Mexico, and Wyoming oil fields.
The collection contains photographs that include items on Harry F. Sinclair and his brother Earl W. Sinclair, the Sinclair drugstore in Kansas City, Missouri, Ranger Oil Field in Texas during its boom days in the 1920s, Wyoming Prairie Oil and Gas Company, Sinclair-Cudahy pipeline laying, Sinclair oil fields and equipment, Buckeye pipelaying machines, and scenes of laying pipe from Glenn Pool, Oklahoma, to El Dorado, Arkansas. It also contains typed and printed company histories and a motion picture film titled "Pioneer Pipe Line."
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There are no known other archival collections created by Sinclair Oil Corporation at the date of processing.
This material was received from A.H. Gibson in 1971-1973, L.G. Rogers in 1978, and the University of Wyoming, Coe Library in 2023.
This collection was processed by Katrina Haines in March, 2018, and updated by D. Claudia Thompson in February and August, 2019 and Jamie J. Greene in March 2025.
Item Description, Box Number, Folder Number, Collection Name, Collection Number, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.