Standard Oil Standard Oil Standard Oil Co. Inc. was an American oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller and Henry Flagler as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refinery in the world of its time. Its history as one of the world's first and largest multinational corporations ended in 1911, when the United States Supreme Court, in a landmark case, ruled that Standard Oil was an illegal monopoly. Standard Oil dominated the oil products market initially through horizontal integration in the refining sector, then, in later years vertical integration; the company was
Standard Oil of Ohio acquired 5,660 former Gulf stations as a result of FTC anti-trust limitations in Chevron's 1985 takeover of Gulf. These stations, bought for $1 billion, were in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina. Sohio was allowed to use the "Gulf" name for five years after the acquisition. In 1987, after all other Standard Oil descendants had minimized use of the name "Standard", Standard of Ohio, proud to be the original corporate component of Standard Oil, sought to corporately rebrand itself under the Standard name, while continuing to use the "Sohio" brand in Ohio. However, later that year