American Oil Company

Amoco ( AM-ə-koh) is a brand of fuel stations operating in the United States and owned by British conglomerate BP since 1998. The Amoco Corporation was an American chemical and oil company, founded by Standard Oil Company in 1889 around a refinery in Whiting, Indiana, and was officially the Standard Oil Company of Indiana until 1985. In 1911, it became an independent corporation as part of the break-up of the Standard Oil trust. Incorporated in Indiana, it was headquartered in Chicago.

In 1925, Standard Oil of Indiana absorbed the American Oil Company, founded in Baltimore in 1910, and incorporated in 1922, by Louis Blaustein and his son Jacob. The combined corporation operated or licensed gas stations under both the Standard name and the American or Amoco name (the latter from American Oil Company) and its logo using these names became a red, white and blue oval with a torch in the center. By the mid-twentieth century it was ranked the largest oil company in the United States. In 1985, it changed its corporate name to Amoco.

The firm's innovations included two essential parts of the modern industry, the gasoline tanker truck and the drive-through filling station. Its "Amoco Super-Premium" lead-free gasoline was marketed decades before environmental concerns led to the eventual phase out of leaded gasoline throughout the United States. Amoco's headquarters were located in the Amoco Building (also called the Standard Oil Building, and nicknamed "Big Stan", now the Aon Center) in Chicago, Illinois.

Amoco merged with BP in December 1998 to form BP Amoco, which was renamed BP in 2001. The Amoco name was branded at the gas pump for the highest 93 octane blends. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 tarnished the BP brand in the US resulting in a rethinking of US branding. In October 2017, BP announced reintroduction of the Amoco branded stations to select US markets. As of 2023, there were over 600 new Amoco stations in the eastern and midwestern United States.

Date Range of DAHR Recordings: 1933

Roles Represented in DAHR: sponsor

= Recordings are available for online listening.
= Recordings were issued from this master. No recordings issued from other masters.

Recordings

Company Matrix No. Size First Recording Date Title Primary Performer Description Role Audio
Victor MS-77418 16-in. 8/4/1933 American's front page American Oil Company Radio broadcast sponsor  
Victor MS-77419 16-in. 8/4/1933 American's front page American Oil Company Radio broadcast sponsor  

Citation

Discography of American Historical Recordings, s.v. "American Oil Company," accessed December 24, 2025, http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/102819.

American Oil Company. (2025). In Discography of American Historical Recordings. Retrieved December 24, 2025, from http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/102819.

"American Oil Company." Discography of American Historical Recordings. UC Santa Barbara Library, 2025. Web. 24 December 2025.

DAHR Persistent Identifier

URI: http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/102819

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