Panhandle Oil and Refining Company

Panhandle Oil and Refining Company. Burkburnett. Roy B. Jones founded the Panhandle Refining Company in 1918 to process oil production from the Burkburnett pool. The next year, the company was reorganized with the assets of Brown and Jones, 6666 Oil Company, the Trojan Oil Company, and the Panhandle Boiler and Machine Shop to become Panhandle Producing and Refining Company. Assets included production in Wichita County, Texas and Cotton County, Oklahoma, refineries in Wichita Falls and Electra, 60 miles of pipeline, storage tanks, and 200 railroad tank cars., In the 1920's, Panhandle expanded from wholesale gasoline sales into retail. The station on this site was purchased by Panhandle. In a few years, the station was replaced with this all-steel building constructed from a kit. The walls are bolted together. The old square nuts are still visible inside the station. Numerous stations of this type were built across West Texas and New Mexico, but this is one of few still existing., After years of operation as a company-owned station, Panhandle converted this location to a dealer-operated business. This station was operated as Sloans #1, providing full-service petroleum products to Burkburnett customers. This busy corner anchored the west end of the downtown business district., In 1956, Petrofina of Belgium purchased the Panhandle Oil Company of Wichita Falls, and the retail name became Fina. After years of mergers and acquisitions, the stations are known as Alon. With its roots in the oil-rich ground of Burkburnett, Panhandle Oil and Refining Company played a major role in the petroleum industry.