Post by Steve on Mar 24, 2011 21:36:37 GMT -5
If you're a fan of Petrolia oil history, like me, you've no doubt come across many photos of Petrolia's oil refineries. The majority of these photos, captioned or not, will likely be of the Imperial Oil refinery. This is simply because Imperial Oil was by far the largest and most important oil refinery Petrolia ever had. Some of the most familiar, almost iconic, images of Petrolia's historic refineries were taken here. There are dozens of these photos; of agitators and barreling houses, of crude oil stills and cooper shops, of paraffin works and tin can manufactories.
We know the plant was located on the north side of town, along Centre St. and bounded by the Blind Line (now Discovery Ln.) at its northern extent. But, what did the refinery as a whole look like? There are very few overview photos of the works. For the most part, we see only isolated photos of individual structures, with very few clues to tell us where they fit into the overall plant. Where were these structures located relative to one another? If we could figure that out, not only could we see the whole refinery as it originally was, but we could begin to discover how a 19th century oil refinery was built and how it operated.
Now, with the acquisition of Petrolia's 1898 fire insurance plan, I have a powerful resource for answering these questions and beginning the process of reconstructing the refinery as it once was.
To the best of my knowledge this has never been attempted before. Anyone with a direct knowledge of the refinery has long since passed. We have to rely on photos and archives now and can only hope that enough was preserved so that history is not lost forever.
It was with this in mind that I began going through my collection of all those familiar photos and looking at the 1898 FIP of the refinery property to see if I could find anything familiar. It didn't take me long to find my first match and I suppose it should have come as no surprise that the first feature I was able to identify on the plan and match with a photo was one of the most published and familiar of all Petrolia oil refinery photos.
Needless to say, I was elated and hooked on finding more. I've now made great progress and will post the results of my discoveries here.
Hope you enjoy...
First up...
1. The Crude Stills
In this screen capture of Google Earth, I've overlaid the FIP of the Imperial refinery onto GE. This allows me to 'fly' around the refinery property any way I want. I can then orient the overlay to approximately recreate the perspective of the original photo, look for clues in the photo and match them to features on the FIP. I've pasted the original photo as an inset on the screen cap...
The photo in the inset shows one of the most frequently photographed features of the Imperial Oil refinery, a 'bench' of crude oil stills. This is one of the most familiar images of the refinery. I have seen at least 5 different photos of these stills, all taken from the same perspective. Until now, I've never been sure where these stills were located. That mystery is now solved.
(click to enlarge)
There will be many more like the above to follow, as I discover and study more refinery photos...
We know the plant was located on the north side of town, along Centre St. and bounded by the Blind Line (now Discovery Ln.) at its northern extent. But, what did the refinery as a whole look like? There are very few overview photos of the works. For the most part, we see only isolated photos of individual structures, with very few clues to tell us where they fit into the overall plant. Where were these structures located relative to one another? If we could figure that out, not only could we see the whole refinery as it originally was, but we could begin to discover how a 19th century oil refinery was built and how it operated.
Now, with the acquisition of Petrolia's 1898 fire insurance plan, I have a powerful resource for answering these questions and beginning the process of reconstructing the refinery as it once was.
To the best of my knowledge this has never been attempted before. Anyone with a direct knowledge of the refinery has long since passed. We have to rely on photos and archives now and can only hope that enough was preserved so that history is not lost forever.
It was with this in mind that I began going through my collection of all those familiar photos and looking at the 1898 FIP of the refinery property to see if I could find anything familiar. It didn't take me long to find my first match and I suppose it should have come as no surprise that the first feature I was able to identify on the plan and match with a photo was one of the most published and familiar of all Petrolia oil refinery photos.
Needless to say, I was elated and hooked on finding more. I've now made great progress and will post the results of my discoveries here.
Hope you enjoy...
First up...
1. The Crude Stills
In this screen capture of Google Earth, I've overlaid the FIP of the Imperial refinery onto GE. This allows me to 'fly' around the refinery property any way I want. I can then orient the overlay to approximately recreate the perspective of the original photo, look for clues in the photo and match them to features on the FIP. I've pasted the original photo as an inset on the screen cap...
The photo in the inset shows one of the most frequently photographed features of the Imperial Oil refinery, a 'bench' of crude oil stills. This is one of the most familiar images of the refinery. I have seen at least 5 different photos of these stills, all taken from the same perspective. Until now, I've never been sure where these stills were located. That mystery is now solved.
(click to enlarge)
There will be many more like the above to follow, as I discover and study more refinery photos...