Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Southland Benzol

Anyone have any knowledge of the origin of this sign. There is more than one Southland in the gas/oil world.
Facts or opinions greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Dave Richey

I am the current owner of this sign and have offered it to Dave because of his interest in Southland items. I obtained the sign in Ft.Smith Arkansas about 1992 and have never seen another. Maybe someone in that area could find out something about it. I feel pretty confident in dating it to the 1930 era or earlier.

Tom Huett

I bought one of these at the Tulsa swap meet around 5-7 years ago, sold it at peotone a year or so later. I later learned that there were two Southland stations in Tulsa during the 1930's and regretted selling the sign.....I have no idea if these signs were affiliated with the stations in Tulsa (1930's) or the Southland from MS.

The sign I had was approx. 3x5 (or bigger) DSP and very heavy.

That is interesting because when I got this sign, the guy said that there were two found. Maybe the one you had came from this pair. I have heard that when benzol was mixed with gasoline for use as a motor fuel, it was a byproduct from producing coke from coal. They quit using it just before World War II because the benzol became more valuable as a chemical feedstock than as a fuel. Therefore, most "benzol" fuels disappeared before the war. Woco Pep, a product of the Wofford Oil Company before it was bought by Pure, contained benzol from coal coking plants in the Birmingham steel industry. I wonder where Southland got the benzol for their product.
Tom

I think this solves it. Benzol advertised on the pump island, lower case 't' in 'Southland'.

For what it's worth, Crown Central dealers sold Crownzol , also a Benzol product to motorists right up to the early 1960's , as Crown Silver regular . Crown Gold Premium was however a tetraethyl leaded product . Ed Shaver

okoil1,
I have sent you a pm.
Tom