Phillips Petroleum Company Museum

In Bartlesville, Oklahoma is a memorial to an industry giant born from the oilfields in Oklahoma.  The Phillips Petroleum Company Museum is a two story structure filled with artifacts, dioramas, and tales of the history of Phillips Petroleum from the early speculation in the Oklahoma oil fields to the 66ers basketball team.

Entrance to the Phillips Petroleum Company Museum
Entrance to the Phillips Petroleum Company Museum
History of Phillips Marketing
History of Phillips Marketing

The Company

Frank Phillips
Frank Phillips

Phillips Petroleum Co. was founded by brothers Lee Eldas “L.E.” Phillips and Frank Phillips.  Frank and L.E. were two of ten children.  At age 14, Frank was apprenticed to a barber. After ten years in the trade, he owned three barber shops.  Frank then transitioned into selling bonds until he learned about oil in what would become Osage County, Oklahoma.  In 1903, Frank and L.E. formed the Anchor Oil & Gas Company.  With a series of successful oil wells, the Phillips brothers proceeded to invest in banks and created the Lewcinda Oil Company.  Frank preferred the stability of banking over the boom and bust of oil speculation. Yet, with the onslaught of WWI and a steady rise in the value of oil, the two brothers consolidated their holdings on June 13, 1917 by incorporating Phillips Petroleum Co. and drilling oil throughout Oklahoma and Kansas.

Barbershop display in homage to the prior profession of Frank Philips. From the accompanying sign: From Barber to Banker to Businessman Like most high-achievers, Frank Phillips was successful in more ways than one. Long before he rose to the pinnacle of prominence as an oil man, he began a career as a barber. He was only 14 when he went into Creston, Iowa, near the farm where he was raised, and began working at a local barber shop. Within a few years, he acquired that shop and two additional barber shops in town.
Frank Philips barbershop.
Phillip's Boardroom
Phillip’s Boardroom

Starting early in its existence, Phillips Petroleum invested in research and development–holding over 15,000 patents by 2000.  Their first patent was issued in 1924 for a process to extract liquid fuel from the little used natural gas.  By 1925, Phillips Petroleum was the largest producer of natural gas liquids in the nation.

Arctic drilling display
Arctic drilling display
A vault of Phillips Patents
A vault of Phillips Patents

Phillips Petroleum Co. has been an iconic and enduring American industrial leader for its ability to adapt to shifting needs and find new applications for their products.  Thanks to successful investments, Phillips expanded into petroleum refining, marketing, and transportation along with the natural gas collection and chemicals sectors.  Phillips created products spanning petroleum based polymers to fertilizer components from natural gas.  On the sales side, Phillips expanded into selling motor oil directly to buyers with its first Phillip’s 66 service station opened on November 19, 1927. Throughout this, Frank Phillips lead Phillips Petroleum as President until 1938. He was 65.

Phillips has also gone through many transformations.  It gained its iconic Phillips 66 shield logo in 1930.  Despite efforts to remain independent when T. Boone Pickens, Jr. attempted a hostile takeover in 1984, Phillips eventually merged with Conoco to create ConocoPhillips in 2002.  Yet, Phillips has emerged an independent company again with the spinoff of Phillips 66 in 2012.  In the wake of such a constantly shifting industrial landscape, the museum stands as a record of all that Phillips 66 has already overcome.

The Parker Pusher Plane suspended above the Phillips Petroleum Company Museum. From the display: The Parker Pusher Plane Billy Parker, the early-day aviator who established the Phillips Aviation Sales division, designed and built this "pusher plane" in 1914 as a novice pilot. Capable of traveling 60 miles an hour, the 1200-pound craft is "pushed" by a rear-facing 90-horsepower Curtis OX-5 V-8 engine. Parker flew the plane at air shows and expositions well into the 1960s, helping promote Phillips fuels and lubricants. "My first plane, called a pusher, never really got off the ground much. You see, because of the high altitude there (Ft. Collins, CO., Parker's boyhood home) the air was thing and you had to be a pretty good pilot to even get off the ground."
Parker Pusher Plane
Phillips' 66ers
Phillips’ 66ers

The Museum

The Phillips Petroleum Company Museum is located not too far east of the oil fields that first established Frank and L.E. Phillips in the oil industry. Displays include original furniture from a roustabout living quarters in the Burbank field as well as an eye catching original 1914 Pusher plane suspended overhead. Unlike more grassroots oil museums, this establishment exhibits its excellent funding in sleek colorful displays and elaborate presentation. Yet, it maintains the very human element behind any company in the volunteers who staff the museum, many of whom are former employees.

Phillips Petroleum Company Office
Phillips Petroleum Company Office
Volunteers making the museum a special place
Volunteers making the museum a special place

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