{"id":696,"date":"2022-01-19T13:55:35","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T19:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wrrmuseum.org\/?page_id=696"},"modified":"2026-02-21T15:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:30:13","slug":"1910s","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wrrmuseum.org\/index.php\/1910s\/","title":{"rendered":"1910 – 1919"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/span>
\n

The Origin of Wood River Refinery<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 1912 Royal Dutch Shell entrepreneurs formed the Roxana Petroleum Company in Oklahoma to find, produce, and refine petroleum (crude oil) as well as market Shell Oil products in the central United States. The St. Louis region was anticipated to be a large customer base which included significant rail and river traffic infrastructure, so in 1917 Roxana Petroleum began constructing a refinery on 172 acres of farmland southeast of Wood River, Illinois. (Standard Oil Company had already constructed a refinery nearby.) The Village of Roxana (named after the company) was built for the workers because of sparse housing in the area. At the same time Roxana Petroleum began constructing a 10 inch diameter pipeline from its Oklahoma oil fields to the refinery, over 400 miles away. The first shipment of crude oil via the pipeline was received on July 31, 1918. Wood River Refinery began operation when Trumble distillation unit no. 1 (rated 5,000 barrels per day) was fired up on September 20 and the first refined products – eleven tank cars of fuel oil – were loaded on October 5 of the same year. Roxana Petroleum’s headquarters moved from Tulsa to the Arcade Building in St\/ Louis.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Trumble Units 1 & 2 under construction<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Boiler House construction<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Temporary commissary and bunk houses<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Homes for refinery workers in what would become the Village of Roxana<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Staff houses under construction on refinery property<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Home<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
1920s \u25ba<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roxana Petroleum Company Magazines<\/strong>
The museum has copies of a few of these, but the following files are<\/strong>
courtesy of the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jan 1918<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Feb 1918<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Mar 1918<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Apr 1918<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
May 1918<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Jun 1918<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Jul 1918<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Aug 1918<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Sep 1918<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Oct 1918<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Nov 1918<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Dec 1918<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
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Jan 1919<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Feb 1919<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Mar 1919<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Apr 1919<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
May 1919<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Jun 1919<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Jul 1919<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Aug 1919<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Sep 1919<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Oct 1919<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Nov 1919<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Dec 1919<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Jan 1920<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Feb 1920<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Mar 1920<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Apr-May 1920<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Jun 1920<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Jul 1920<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roxana Petroleum Company MagazinesThe museum has copies of a few of these, but the following files arecourtesy of the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-696","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrrmuseum.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrrmuseum.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrrmuseum.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrrmuseum.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrrmuseum.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/wrrmuseum.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1828,"href":"https:\/\/wrrmuseum.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/696\/revisions\/1828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrrmuseum.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}