During the 1920s oil boom, Fort Worth became the geographical center of the oil producing regions of the American Southwest. Virtually every major oil company had a Fort Worth office, and the city had seven oil refineries by 1930. This complex is the only active refinery remaining of the original seven. The site for the refinery was assembled by the Inland Refining Co. Transcontinental Oil Co. pur chased the site in 1919. The company operated two other refineries in the Texas/Oklahoma area. By 1924, Transcontinental had built a $1,500,000 facility which refined 15,000 barrels of crude oil per day. A.L. Adams was the Fort Worth Division Manager for Transcontinen tal Oil during this period. The Ohio Oil Co. purchased Transcontinental Oil in 1930. Ohio was originally part of Standard Oil, but became a separate company after a 1911 antitrust judgment. In addition to its refineries, Transcontinental had 313 oil wells and 376 gas stations which operated under the name Marathon. In 1934, this division of Ohio Oil changed its name to Marathon Oil. Ohio Oil acquired Transcontinental primarily for its oil wells and retail outlets, and consequently they sold off a number of the refineries. Ohio Oil retained the Fort Worth refinery until 1941, when they sold it to Premier Oil Refining Co. of Texas. Premier Oil, including its successor company Premier Petroleum, owned the refinery until 1956. The complex has changed hands several times since 1956 until the present owners, the Winston Refining Co., purchased the refinery in 1980. The facility is operated as the Amber Refining Co. Today the refinery includes buildings constructed over a sixty year period. Several buildings have survived from 1919, including the original power plant, a two-story brick structure with a central gabled monitor. Two square brick smokestack date from the refinery’s early years, in addi tion to a handsome, one-story, red brick building. This building has two round arch entrances with large glazed fanlights. The early refinery buildings are potentially eligible for the National Register because of their historic importance.
