Unocal Legacy

HISTORIC UNION OIL BULLETINS

The photo at the right is Mrs. Lea Keeler. In 1921 and 22, she was Chief Telephone operator for the Comptroller's Department of the Union Oil Company of California, headquartered in Los Angeles.

In March of 1921, the Comptroller's Department started a new publication, The Union Oil Bulletin. Mrs. Keller kept her copy, writing her name on the cover. Where it has been in the last hundred years, we don't know - but we now have her copy of Bulletin Number One, and you can see it by clicking on the link below.

We also obtained her copy of Bulletin #11 from January 1922, linked below.

CLICK ON BULLETIN TO SEE WHOLE PUBLICATION:

Interview with Richard J. Stegemeier

Glimpses of Union Oil’s Long History,
Seen in Company Magazines

Union Oil Bulletin
July 1922
"On Tour" Magazine"
January 1950
Seventy-Six Magazine
Spring-Summer 1993

PURE OIL NEWS
November 1965

The stated purpose of this website is to preserve the history of the Union / Unocal era. An example of that is the archive of company magazines we are building, with lots of help from volunteers. In its history, Union Oil had 3 different company magazines, as shown in the examples above.

There were 3 different Union Oil magazines:

Starting in March 1921, the company published the Union Oil Bulletin. That continued quarterly until 1941. The July 1922 Union Oil Bulletin is the oldest we currently have.
“On Tour” magazine was published monthly from 1939 until May 1957. The note below is from the final issue of the magazine:

Thanks to retiree Vern Grimshaw, we are in the process of adding examples of the “On Tour” (always with the quote marks) magazine.

Seventy Six magazine was published from June 1957 until 2005. With lots of help from Gary Foy, we have many Seventy Six magazines from the 1980’s and 1990’s. Vern Grimshaw provided several Seventy Six magazines from 1957, including the very first issue.
The fourth magazine cover shown above is a special issue of the Pure OilNews, issued after the 1965 merger of Pure into Union Oil. The purpose was to acquaint the Pure employees with their new organization. The magazine gives a pretty good summary of what Union Oil looked like in the mid-1960's.

If anyone has company magazines that are not in our archives, we would like to borrow them and scan them. Please contact Mike Utt (mikeutt@roadrunner.com)

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Union Oil Tank Fires, April 1926

Thunderstorms with lightning are not common in southern California, but they do happen sometimes. April 1926 was one of those times.

In the book Oil, Orchards and Flames, firefighter Bill Nash described some of the events: CLICK HERE FOR FULL ARTICLE

A Little Slice Of Unocal History
A slide presentation gives the very big picture of Union Oil's history and innovation in international drilling operations, exploration and development.

Article on restoration of the Union Oil DC-3-click here

Union Oil DC-3 video-click here

4th installment of personal Interview with R.J. Stegemeier - click here!

Interview with President Richard J. Stegemeier from SeventySix Magazine 1986 - click here!

Union Oil 125th Anniversary History - click here

Unocal Legacy, Inc. was formed to create this web site celebrating the Legacy of Union76/Unocal.

SEE the old "Murph" commercials - links on our "Links" page - click here!

See our article on the 1984 struggle between CEO Fred Hartley and T. Boone Pickens for the future of Unocal.

As we go forward we hope others who were part of or interested in the Unocal Era will visit and contribute to preserving the history, accomplishments and effort that made Unocal a historic California and international petroleum producing and refining corporation.

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