Standard Oil Company

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Standard Oil Company of Indiana began in 1889 as a Standard Oil subsidiary, built around a vast refinery at Whiting, Indiana, just southeast of Chicago. The plant began refining in 1890 and grew into one of the country’s industrial heavyweights: a sprawling monument to kerosene, gasoline, pipelines, and the eternal perfume of progress.

After the 1911 breakup of the Standard Oil trust, Standard of Indiana emerged as an independent company with its main offices in downtown Chicago. It expanded from refining into oil production, and its engineers helped pioneer thermal cracking techniques that squeezed more gasoline from crude just as America discovered it had places to drive.

In 1925, the company merged with the American Oil Company, gaining the Amoco name that would eventually eclipse the formal Standard Oil title. Chicago remained the corporate center, while Whiting kept doing the smoky, essential work. By the 1950s, Standard Indiana ranked among America’s largest oil companies.

The company adopted the name Amoco in 1985. Amoco merged with British Petroleum on December 31, 1998, becoming part of BP Amoco; the parent company later adopted the BP name in 2001. The old Standard Indiana identity was gone, but its tall Chicago legacy and refinery-scale swagger lingered.

Our Standard Oil Company of Indiana collection celebrates the Chicago oil giant that turned crude, chemistry, and corporate ambition into a century-long Midwestern machine.