Sinclair Gas: DINO still going strong 90 years later!

By Maxine Carter-Lome, publisher

 

If you traveled by car almost anywhere in the Continental U.S. in the first half of the 20th century, chances are you stopped at a Sinclair Gas Station.

Although its roadside presence and iconic Sinclair Gas logo featuring a green dinosaur have diminished in recent decades with time and new competition, interest in vintage Sinclair memorabilia could not be hotter in today’s automobilia and petroliana market. DINO is proof that out-of-sight is not out-of-mind.

Harry Sinclair

“He was shrewd but hearty, tough but genial, a masterful trader, a hard-driving sportsman. Where he sat, there was the head of the table.” – A colleague on founder Harry Sinclair

Harry Ford Sinclair’s father wanted him to become a small-town druggist, so Harry dutifully graduated from the University of Kansas School of Pharmacy and took over his father’s drug store. Perhaps the best thing that could’ve happened to 25-year-old Harry F. Sinclair was losing nearly everything he owned in a bad speculation – including the drug store his father had left him. He was now free to speculate on a different future.

Sinclair next found work selling lumber for oil derricks and soon became engaged in trading oil leases on the side, traveling across southeast Kansas and the Osage Indian territory (now part of Oklahoma) by train or buggy, sniffing out prospects. Profits were small, but Harry saw enough success to attract moneymen such as Chicago meat-packer J. M. Cudahy, Pittsburgh capitalist Theodore Barnsdall, and Prairie Oil Company president James F. O’Neill.

Sinclair organized small companies for them around single leases, with himself as manager and usually treasurer. His salary was often paltry, but he also took a few shares of stock in each enterprise for his creative work. When the leases yielded oil—as they did with uncanny frequency—the speculators sold for a profit and quickly reinvested in Sinclair’s next scheme.

By 1907, Sinclair was the richest man in Kansas and by 1913, he owned more than sixty oil companies, most of which were in Oklahoma, making him the largest independent oil operator in the Mid-Continent Region.

In 1916, when Sinclair was not yet 40 years old, he bought the Cudahy Refining Company of Chicago which owned several pipelines and refineries. Utilizing that opportunity, Sinclair secured $50 million in financing and formed the Sinclair Oil and Refining Corporation by combining all his companies into one entity. His goal was to build a new 673-mile, 8-inch-diameter pipeline across the head of the midcontinent, linking new refineries to be built in Kansas City and Chicago. When the pipeline was completed (in record-breaking time), Sinclair become the second largest pipeline operator in the U.S., serving 90 percent of mid-America.

“The Sinclair Oil and Gas Company made oil history the past 30 days that has never been equaled or even approached in the history of the industry.” – National Petroleum News, May 1916

With operations now encompassing every process of the industry, from crude oil production to automobile gas at its own-branded service stations, the newly structured and renamed Sinclair Consolidated Oil Corp. became the seventh largest oil company in the nation in 1919, with capital assets of more than $178 million. By the 1920s, Sinclair was the seventh largest oil company in the nation.

Having navigated his company through the Depression and WWII, and after serving a brief prison sentence for contempt in his role in what was called at the time the Teapot Dome scandal, Sinclair stepped down as president of the company he founded in January 1949. At the time, it was said Sinclair Oil had assets of $1.2 billion, with earnings of $68 million. Sinclair passed away seven years later at the age of 80 in Pasadena, California a very wealthy man as an Industrialist, not a Druggist.

In 1969, Sinclair Oil merged into Atlantic Richfield Company. Today, the Company claims over 1,600 independent Sinclair-branded stations in more than 30 western and mid-western states, three refineries (two in Wyoming and one in Tulsa), and one thousand miles of pipeline.

Sinclair Hits the Road

The rise in automobile sales and automotive travel for business and leisure in the early decades of the 20th century provided new opportunities for Sinclair to add to its brand and bring its automotive products directly to the consumer.

Before Sinclair opened the first modern service station in 1922 in Chicago, early automobile owners bought gasoline in buckets and maintenance was a “do-it-yourself” operation. To attract the increasingly mobile consumer, service stations were soon popping up everywhere the road traveled, offering such services as oil changes, greasing, tire repairs, wash jobs, free air, and minor mechanical repairs. Competition, however, was fierce and so was the effort among companies such as Sinclair to build brand loyalty. It was no longer about getting gas wherever one could find it – it was now about filling your tank with the right gas! As the Company advertised, “Drive with care and buy Sinclair.”

With the roadside service station market growing quickly to keep up with the growing number of cars on the road, the major oil companies invested in advertising campaigns to create brand preference among consumers. They adopted distinctive corporate logos and slogans, standardized the look and service offerings of their stations, and added new service amenities such as oil checks and auto repairs to entice motorists. Sinclair’s now iconic green dinosaur logo, its superstations with installed modern restrooms, and a reputation in the automotive world for premium oil and gasoline products, literally put Sinclair’s over 8,100 branded service stations on the map, across the country, by 1933.

The Rise of DINO the Dinosaur

Sinclair Oil was looking for a new and different symbol that brought instant recognition and identity to the company, its gas, and service stations as the company entered the 1930s with an expanding roadside presence.

Its advertising writers first had the idea to use dinosaurs in Sinclair marketing to promote lubricants refined from crude oil believed to have formed when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The original campaign included a dozen different dinosaurs, but it was the gentle giant, the Apatosaurus, that captured the hearts of Americans but not before some debate as to his dinosaur DNA.

DINO was originally identified as a Brontosaurus when he was first used in Sinclair advertising but due to conflicting opinions among paleontologists at the time of that identification, Sinclair conceded to the prevailing opinions of the scientific community and re-classified its mascot as an Apatosaurus dinosaur. In the wave of his popularity, Sinclair registered DINO (pronounced DYE-NO) as a trademark in 1932 and he quickly became an integral part of the Sinclair family and company identity.

Sinclair introduced its new association with the dinosaur to the public at the “Century of Progress” Chicago World’s Fair of 1933. The Sinclair exhibit recreated a portion of the earth’s surface as it existed 100 million years ago and turned it into a dinosaur park featuring seven life-sized dinosaurs, two of which were in a mock battle complete with sound effects.

According to an article in Big News, a Chicago World’s Fair promotional paper, “Sinclair has built these life-sized monsters to impress on your mind the vast age of the crude oils used in refining Sinclair motor oils. It is a generally accepted fact that, by and large, the oldest crude oils make the finest lubricants.”

The Sinclair exhibit alone is reported to have had 16 million visitors.

Soon, DINO’s image was an integral part of the company’s now iconic green and white logo and branded on everything from service station signage to gas pumps, oil cans, and service attendant uniforms. Other Dino-themed promotions during the 1930s included the issuance of dinosaur stamps and an accompanying stamp album in 1935. Stamps were issued weekly at Sinclair stations, but the first Sinclair stamp albums, all 4 million of them, disappeared in just two days.

Soon, DINO was the most recognized and beloved dinosaur on the planet.

A New Dinosaur Era

Sinclair’s focus and its fortunes took a roller-coaster ride from the late 1930s in the shadows of war through the 1950s, when for the first time, the company was importing more oil than it was producing. To jumpstart a new era, the company went back to its marketing roots.

DINO came down from the logo and into the hands of children everywhere starting in the early 1960s, first at the New York World’s Fair and then soon after at Sinclair gas stations everywhere, where a machine molded a DINO for you while you watched.

Not only was DINO scaled down in the 1960s to become a must-have play toy for children of this new generation to introduce them to the Sinclair brand but he was also super-sized, as well.

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

DINO the Sinclair dinosaur first appeared in The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1963 as the lead-off balloon. He was 28 feet high, 60 feet in length, weighed 295 lbs and required 26 handlers. He quickly became an annual fan favorite, returning to New York every year for the parade until 1976.

DINO made a triumphant return to The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2015. The new 72-foot-long balloon, this time requiring 90 handlers, took flight above New York City in front of 3.5 million spectators and more than 50 million television viewers, reintroducing America’s favorite dinosaur to yet another generation of fans.

Amy Kule, then-executive producer of the Macy’s Parade, commented on the new DINO balloon’s debut in a news release, saying “the Macy’s Parade has always been rooted in history and tradition, and what better way to honor that legacy as we gear up for our 90th anniversary, than to look back at our history and re-introduce a classic character and fan favorite to a new generation.”

Dinoland

After his first year in the Macy’s Day Parade, DINO returned to New York the following year with eight more of his friends – this time made of fiberglass and featuring cutting-edge animatronics – for Sinclair’s Dinoland exhibit in the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair. He and his other dinosaur friends traveled by barge 125 miles down the Hudson River to the Dinoland Pavilion, much to the delight of the thousands that gathered along the route to see the spectacle pass.

Dinoland featured “Mold-a-Rama” machines, which for 25 cents would mold a dinosaur toy out of Sinclair’s “Dinofin Plastic” before your very eyes. After the fair, DINO had his animatronics removed, toured the nation with his fellow Mesozoic friends, appeared in the 1966 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and now lives in Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas, along with the Tyrannosaurus rex.

Vintage Sinclair

For Man Cave decorators, Road Art enthusiasts, and Automobilia and Petroliana collectors, vintage Sinclair collectibles are having a moment. Sinclair’s logo artwork, color schemes, the evolution of DINO, and decades of service station signage, gas pumps and globes, branded products, and merchandise, make Sinclair items a desirable addition to any collection, and in some instances, quite affordable.

A lot consisting of Sinclair DINO Soap, Sinclair gas pump coin bank, Sinclair 1939 Dodge Flyer Tanker Bank, and Sinclair tape measure sold for $64 at a recent Mecum On Time auction. Another lot from the same collection, consisting of Sinclair DINO Soap, Sinclair Six Transistor Radio, and Sinclair thermometer, sold for $89; however, on the higher end are gas pumps and globes, porcelain signs, and early Sinclair oil cans.

The power of the Sinclair brand and its iconic look even after all these years is evident in the number of Sinclair vintage gas pumps and globes that can be found for sale online. Here, you will find two options: reproductions and originals – in “as is” and reconditioned condition.

For those looking for display aesthetics in their purchase, reproductions of antique vintage gas pump replicas are highly popular, typically selling for several thousands of dollars. As an example, a Sinclair Replica Wayne 70 Gas Pump recently sold for $2,969.99 on Car Guy Garage. Refinished/reconditioned can go for even more to reflect the work and craft that goes into the restoration process. A “Vintage Restored Green & White SINCLAIR DINO Gas Pump” in excellent condition with 1987 Repro Lighted Globe recently sold for $3,500 on Invaluable.com.

The cost to purchase authentic vintage gas pumps and globes in “as is” condition depends a lot on the year, model, and condition. At an “Antique Gas Pumps, Signs and Vending Machines Auction” by Dan Auctioneers in 2020, a Sinclair H-C Antique Gas Pump sold for $3,4000 and a Sinclair DINO Antique Gas Pump circa 1954 sold for $2,400. In 2021, a Sinclair H-C Vintage Gas Pump, Bennett 541 Series, sold for $1,300 through bidmayo.com. Also popular at auction are vintage Sinclair signs, which can sell for under $100 and into the thousands. A large, double-sided porcelain DINO sign recently sold for $2,600 through Rockabilly Auctions on liveauctioneers.com

Sinclair’s consistent branding over the years, emphasis on its roots, and the power of nostalgia has kept Sinclair and DINO alive now for over one hundred years. In our collections, their legacy lives on.