10 Facts About Cities Service

Cities Service began by acquiring gas-producing properties in the mid-continent and southwest.

Cities Service became the first company in the mid-continent to use the slack demand period of summer to refill depleted fields near its market areas.

Government funding through the Defense Plant Corporation prompted Cities Service to build plants to manufacture butadiene, used to make synthetic rubber, and toluene, a fuel octane booster and solvent.

Cities Service Company inaugurated use of the Citgo brand in 1965 for its refining, marketing and retail petroleum businesses .

Cities Service threatened to dissolve itself by incremental sales rather than being taken over by Mesa, stating that it believed that the pieces would sell for more than Pickens was offering for the whole.

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Cities Service Company located what they thought would be a "white knight" to give them a better deal and entered into a merger agreement with Gulf Oil Corporation.

That same year, Cities Service Company transferred all of the assets of its Refining, Marketing and Transportation division into the newly formed Citgo Petroleum Corporation subsidiary, to ease the divestiture of the division, which Occidental had no interest in retaining.

Pursuant to an agreement entered into in 1982, Citgo and the Citgo and Cities Service brands were sold by Occidental in 1983 to Southland Corporation, original owners of the 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores.

Cities Service was a sponsor of the No 21 Wood Brothers racing team in NASCAR for many years, with drivers such as Michael Waltrip, Elliott Sadler, Kyle Petty, Neil Bonnett, Morgan Shepherd and Dale Jarrett.

Cities Service sponsored the Citgo Pontiac-Riley of Venezuelan car driver Milka Duno in the Rolex Sports Car Series.