In mid-July 1938, a spectacular fire and series of explosions at the Sinclair Oil refinery in Wellsville, New York killed three people and injured at least 75 others. The incident began on a Sunday afternoon, July 17th, and was officially extinguished two days later on Tuesday evening, July 19th, 1938. But over those three days, havoc ensued, as hundreds of firefighters came to battle the inferno. Dozens of storage tanks filled with various volatile mixtures burned and exploded throughout the fire, twisting and destroying refining equipment, resulting in millions of dollars in property damage, three deaths, and many injured.
One of the main explosions of a large tank – or a series of them – is captured during the July 1938 Sinclair Oil refinery fire at Wellsville, New York – a fire that burned for 3 days, killed 3 people & injured at least 75 others.
The fire had begun in the basement of one of the refinery’s processing plants, where a failure of a motor or pump touched off a blaze which later spread to small tanks and barrels of naphtha, which in turn began burning and exploding, spreading the fire throughout the complex. Electric power was soon lost at the refinery as well, and with that, the failure of pumping power to the steam pipe system which was then used for fire suppression. The fire at the Sinclair oil refinery, which had attracted spectators from around the area, was out of control for the next 24 hours or more.
The refinery disaster made national news, with stories by the Associated Press appearing throughout the country, some with photos, and some running on the front page, as shown below at left in The Lowell Sun of Massachusetts.
 The Lowell Sun newspaper of Lowell, MA, ran a front page story on the Wellsville refinery fire: “New Blast At Oil Refinery Adds To Losses Now Set At $15,000,000.” |
 NYTimes story on the Sinclair Refinery blaze focuses on exploding giant storage tank that went airborne. More on that later below. |
More detail on the Wellsville refinery disaster follows below. But first, some background on the region and the Sinclair Oil Company.
First Oil Boom
Welllsville, in SW New York on PA line, close to oil’s first discovery at Titusville in 1859.
In addition to Wellsville, another nearby New York town, named “Petrolia,”was also part of the early oil boom, as oil was also discovered there, somewhat later, in 1879. The name “Petrolia” has also been used to define the larger New York / Pennsylvania oil region at that time. A recent book on the topic – Petrolia: The Landscape of America’s First Oil Boom, by Brian Black – recounts some of the history of the NY-PA region that became America’s largest oil producer between 1859 and 1873. That book also describes the region’s “descent into environmental hell,” as the boom played out during those years.
In any case, by 1901, an oil refinery had been built in Wellsville to process both local and Pennsylvania crude oil, and it operated then as the Wellsville Refining Co. for nearly 20 years By 1919, however, a larger oil company, Sinclair Refining Co., purchased the Wellsville refinery and would operate it there for the next several decades, into the 1950s.
A late 1920s-early-1930s postcard, with a painted rendering of the Wellsville refinery, shows the Sinclair operation in its rural setting of Allegany County in southwestern New York. The town of Wellsville itself was about a mile or so away.
This mid-1930s aerial photo shows the layout of the Sinclair refinery at Wellsville, with storage tanks, etc,.
Sinclair Oil
By the 1930s, under the ownership of Sinclair Oil, the Wellsville refinery was expanded and improved. The refinery grounds, plus ancillary areas, including a landfill for wastes, would grow to encompass about 100 total acres.
As shown in the photo at left, there would also be a number of storage tanks at the complex. A rail yard can also be faintly seen in the top left of the photo. The refinery site was also bordered in part by the Genessee River.
In any case, by the 1930s, the Wellsville refinery had become one of Sinclair’s largest refineries.
Sinclair Oil itself, had begun in 1901, as a Kansas pharmacist named, Harry Ford Sinclair, became engaged in trading oil leases, That work took him to the newly opened Oklahoma oil fields. By 1913 he would own more than sixty oil companies, most of which were then in Oklahoma. He later moved his business headquarters to New York City.
In 1916, he formed the Sinclair Oil and Refining Corporation, the same year he bought the Cudahy Refining Company of Chicago which itself owned several pipelines and refineries. So, by the time Sinclair bought the Wellsville refinery in 1919, Sinclair Oil was a well-known company.
A 1920s Sinclair Oils image.
Sinclair, however, and its founder, Harry Sinclair, were not without scandal. In 1922, Sinclair was found to have received favorable treatment for a public land oil lease for is Mammoth Oil subsidiary at Teapot Dome, Wyoming (no competitive bidding) by Interior Secretary Albert Fall – in what became known as the “Teapot Dome” scandal. The scandal, which also involved another company on another lease, included illicit payments to Secretary Fall by Sinclair and another oil executive. The whole affair became a major scandal, with Congressional and Supreme Court drama through 1929, ending in Sinclair’s case, with a conviction for contempt of Congress and a six-month prison sentence for Mr. Sinclair, after which he resumed his business career.
Sinclair the company, meanwhile, through the Depression, continued acquiring oil companies. In 1932, Prairie Oil and Gas of the southern U.S., and Rio Grande Oil of California were added to Sinclair’s growing empire. By 1933 the company was the eighth largest oil company in America boasting the following assets: 14,000 miles of pipelines; 6,446 railroad tank cars; 100,000 tons of ocean tankers; nine deep-water terminals; 2,170 bulk plants; 8,100 service stations (company-owned or held under long-term lease); 21,000 other retail outlets, and 20,000 employees.
 Sinclair’s famous green dinosaur mascot became wildly successful. |
 The Sinclair pitch: “Dinosaur-era” PA oil. |
By 1930, Sinclair had also begun its retail advertising and national marketing strategy featuring what would become its famous green dinosaur. This campaign had a connection to Wellsville-refined Pennsylvania oil – described by Sinclair as “Pennsylvania-grade crudes” – those “laid down during the Mesozoic Era, when dinosaurs roamed the earth.” Sinclair’s campaign would feature a dozen different dinosaurs, and became a great success.
Photo from one end of the Sinclair oil refinery at Wellsville, NY showing two storage tanks there – one far left and another smaller tank far right – painted with the company’s dinosaur logo, likely from the 1930s.
And by 1932, one of the big dinosaur images – then known as the brontosaurus – became so popular that Sinclair registered its as a company trademark, soon to be seen throughout company literature, advertising, refinery storage tanks, and more. A gigantic Sinclair dinosaur-themed exhibit graced the 1933-1934 Chicago World’s Fair. That exhibit drew more than 24,000 people daily. In 1935, Sinclair issued a dinosaur stamp album and released accompanying dinosaur stamps weekly at its service stations. The first printing of albums sold out within 48 hours after a single network-radio broadcast of the offer. The dinosaur connection would prove to be a brilliant marketing ploy that would stay with the company for decades to this day.
…Back At The Fire
In July 1938, meanwhile, back at the Wellsville refinery fire, volunteer firefighters from surrounding towns, and across the state line from Pennsylvania, had come to fight the blaze. Before it was over, more than 200 volunteer firefighters from 20 towns would be involved in fighting the fire. One report filed by the Associated Press during the fire fight on July 18, 1938 noted that exploding tanks at the refinery were hampering the efforts of the firefighters. “Frequent rumbling explosions threatened new hours of terror tonight as the flame-swept $15,000,000 Sinclair Oil Refinery…,” said the AP story. Firefighters were especially on edge, given some 300 storage tanks of various sizes, containing various fluids, found throughout the refinery. Many of these were on fire. More than a dozen had already exploded in the early hours of the blaze.
These two photos capture the fire and some explosions (2nd photo) at the Sinclair Oil Refinery at Wellsville, New York, July 1938.
“Anxious firemen, weary but still determined to quench the inferno worked near hot, bulging tanks with little heed for their own safety,” said the AP news report. “…Now and then,” the report continued, “the plates in a tank would begin to shift and swell perceptibly. An alarm would go out. Firemen would run pell-mell to safer quarters. Sometimes the tanks held. Several times they blew up with terrific force. About 16 tanks had exploded by a late hour today….”
Part of a New York Times story, July 19, 1938.
Other dangers at the site emerged as fires once put out, blazed up anew, as occurred in the ruins of the dewaxing plant and power house, then flaring very close to a naphtha plant, filled with high explosive chemicals.
With the continuing danger of exploding tanks, emergency calls wet out to Western New York and Pennsylvania for special fire-fighting equipment and chemicals. And later, special American LaFrance chemical fire trucks and more chemicals arrived via the Erie railroad. Still, Wellsville Fire Chief, Hollin Johnston estimated damage – including business, stock, and equipment losses — would amount to about $5,000,000.
At one point during the battle, firemen hastily constructed an earthen dam in the refinery to stop the advance of flaming liquids, as there was a fear of these flaming rivulets not only spreading within the refinery, but of masses of floating, flaming oil reaching the Genesee River and traveling downstream into Wellsville. Fortunately, the earthen dam held.
However, the most dramatic and lethal incident of the 1938 Sinclair refinery blaze at Wellsville was the giant storage tank that went airborne after catching fire.
Big Flying Tank
About two hours into the blaze, one of the refinery’s big tanks – one with a mixture of 2,500 barrels of lube oil and naphtha – started to burn. According to reports at the scene, “as this tank burned it made a low rumbling sound, then some hissing, as it was wrenched from its ground moorings as though it were a toy.” The huge 10-ton tank, filled with it fluids, was then explosively propelled into the sky and across the Genesee River, a distance of more than 500 feet – flying in the air in “a great fiery arc, dripping liquid flame” as it went.
Life magazine photo of “flying giant oil tank” from 1938 Sinclair Refinery explosion, with tank shown just before impact. Close inspection near the bottom of this photo will reveal very tiny figures on the hillside – spectators who had come there to see the fire that day, now running for their lives. Photo, W. H. Kresge.
The giant flaming tank landed on the opposite river bank, where a crowd of spectators had assembled to watch the blaze, believing they were at a safe distance. Upon landing, the flaming tank instantly killed three spectators, burning others. The hurtling, flaming tank was captured in two photos by a Life magazine photographer, one in mid-flight and another just before landing (see above).…The big tank flew across the river in “a great fiery arc, dripping liquid flame” as it went, landing near a crowd of spectators and killing 3…
The editors at Life magazine named the amazing photo of the flying storage tank fireball their “picture of the week,” and described how it was photographed as follows:
…Photographer W. H. Kresge stood on a hill in Wellsville, N.Y., on July 18 {1936], taking pictures of a million-dollar fire in the Sinclair Refining Co.’s plant. Between him and the refinery flowed the Geneses River. Spectators had gathered on the near bank. Suddenly from the plant came an earth-shaking explosion. Into the air rose a ten-ton steel tank, carrying 2,000 barrels of naphtha. The people started running. In the cloud of flame the tank cleared a low building, rocketed 1,000 ft, across the river and dropped among the crowd. Photographer Kresge caught it just before it landed. Killed were three people in the crowd, which you can see as little figures running for their lives.”
Back at the refinery blaze, hundreds of firemen continued to battle the inferno through Sunday night, with periodic tank explosions refreshing the blaze. There were about 300 storage tanks of various sizes at the refinery, each containing explosive liquids.
Early Monday morning, about 4 a.m, now in the second day of the blaze, one tank exploded and landed atop another tank. Firefighters redoubled their efforts again. By Tuesday morning, on the third day of the battle, the steam suppression system had been restored and the fire was then beginning to be brought under control. Minor explosions and flare ups continued, but the fire was mostly out by 6 pm that evening.
Front-page Associated Press aerial photo of Wellsville refinery fire still burning on Monday, July 18, 1938, as published by The Potter Enterprise (Coudersport, PA). Thursday, Jul 21, 1938 with headline, “As Refinery Fire Appeared From Air Monday.”
In the end, there was much destruction at the refinery, including 14 chilling towers, a dewaxing plant and a dozen big storage tanks – including the one that had been propelled across the Genessee River. Electric lines that ran near the refinery had also been knocked out for a time, leaving a number of small communities in the area, without power, including: Wellsville, Whitesville, Andover, Hallsport, Stannards, Lower Riverside, and West Wellsville.
In the cleanup afterwards, the tank that had blown across the river had embedded part of its gear works into the ground, and even tractors could not move the tank shell. Originally the 2,500-barrel-capacity tank had been 25 feet tall and 25 feet in diameter, weighing tons. The immovable tank shell on the river bank was then cut into halves with an acetylene torch and pulled apart by a bulldozer. It was then that the third body of one of the spectators was found, pressed into the earth.
Photograph of the aftermath of the July 1938 fire at the Sinclair oil refinery at Wellsville, NY showing a collection of various refinery tanks scarred and damaged from the blaze, some crumpled and ripped apart.
While the 1938 fire was a significant event causing major damage and loss of life, the available information surveyed so far at this writing does not indicate whether an investigation was held into the Sinclair accident, or if any corrective actions, safety recommendations, penalties, and/or law-suits/reparations resulted given the personal injuries and loss of life that had occurred.
Following the 1938 fire, the Wellsville refinery was rebuilt by Sinclair and reportedly “played a significant role during World War II” and would continue to operate for the next 20 years. However, as regional oil supplies dwindled in later years, the refinery struggled economically.
This 1950s aerial photo shows the town of Wellsville, NY and the Genesee River in the foreground, and also in the distance, upper right, the Sinclair Oil Refinery, then still operating.
In February 1958, a second significant fire took out a vital cracking unit, dealing a final blow to the refinery. That fire also drew spectators from the area, and occurred during a snow storm. The in-house Sinclair Refinery fire crew battled the blaze and eventually put it out. The refinery thereafter was shut down, and by April 1958, was formally closed by Sinclair. At the time, it was Sinclair’s smallest refinery, then processing 3,500 barrels of Pennsylvania crude per day.
In 1969, Sinclair Refining merged with the Atlantic-Richfield Company (ARCO), and ARCO thereafter became a “responsible party” for some subsequent clean up at the Wellsville refinery site (more on this below). In April 2000, BP Amoco (now BP) acquired ARCO for $26.8 billion, then becoming responsible for the site thereafter. Today, parts of the site have been repurposed, as a branch campus of Alfred State College now occupies some of the site.
BP placed this explanatory historic marker on the former site of the Sinclair Oil Refinery at Wellsville, NY, in the early 2000s, some years after much of the site clean-up had occurred there, as described below.
Toxic Aftermath
Wastes & Pollution
During the operating history of the Wellsville refinery – over nearly 60 years – the grounds and surrounding environment there, including the town of Wellsville, took a measure of abuse.
EPA found that tetraethyl lead sludge generated in the refining process was temporarily buried in pits within the refinery area.EPA would later investigate and report on its findings at the 100-acre site, revealing quite a compendium of toxic wastes at the site and its adjacent ten-acre landfill. During Sinclair’s refinery operations at Wellsville, and before,EPA found that tetraethyl lead sludge generated in the refining process was temporarily buried in pits within the refinery area. The sludge was then oxidized or burned, causing the creation of lead oxide. The burned sludges were eventually reburied within an adjacent landfill located along the southernmost portion of the site. Other wastes generated during the course of the refinery operations included tank sludges from a solvent plant, sludges from an oil separator, acids, pesticides, waste oil and heavy metals. While these wastes were primarily disposed of at the landfill, manufacturing and waste handling operations at the time also led to contamination of refinery surface soils, subsurface soils, and groundwater.
Although the dump had been closed since 1958, and the refinery shut down in 1963, waste sludges and spilled petroleum had been seeping into groundwater at the refinery site and also into the Genesee River from the landfill. The river was used as a source of drinking water by the town of Wellsville, located 1.25 miles from the site. The Genesee also had changed course somewhat over the years, and had begun eating into the landfill area. Polluted groundwater in the refinery area indicated three distinct and underground plumes in the shallow aquifer.Effects upon fish, waterfowl, and mammals were determined by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to have been significant into the early 1980s, if not beyond.
Volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds and metals were identified in the refinery area. Sampling and analysis indicated the presence of arsenic and lead in surface soils at action levels, and at much lower levels in subsurface soils. Polluted groundwater in the refinery area indicated three distinct and underground plumes in the shallow aquifer – “northern,” “central” and “southern.” These plumes included levels of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, nitrobenzene, naphthalene, arsenic, chromium and lead above action levels selected for the site.
At the refinery’s 10-acre landfill site over the years, a number of wastes were deposited, including: cloth filters used for straining oil; sludges from an oil/water separator; tank sludges from the solvent plant; “off-specification” products; oil-soaked soils and sludges (deposited daily); burnt Fullers Earth (used for filtering); tank sludges (deposited weekly); acid spills; cinders and ash from the coal-fired boiler plant; tetraethyl lead; pesticides; waste oil; and heavy metals.
A 1981 site inspection revealed that debris from the eroding landfill area has washed into and contaminated the Genesee River, and EPA later detected “oily material” entering the water intake of the town’s water treatment plant. In 1983, ARCO – EPA later detected “oily material” entering the water intake of the town’s [Wellsville’s] water treatment plant. which had earlier acquired Sinclair, thereby becoming the site’s responsible party – removed about 10 drums of waste material from the Genesee River that had entered the river from flooding of the landfill.
Reports from the community and site inspections conducted by the New York State Department of Environ-mental Conservation (DEC) indicated that the site warranted inclusion on the National Priorities List (NPL) of toxic sites, also known as Superfund. In 1983 the refinery site was declared a Superfund site by EPA. Atlantic Richfield (ARCO), which had acquired Sinclair in 1969?, was then designated the “potential responsible party” for the refinery pollution.
In 1985, EPA authorized an initial remedial measure at the site, consisting of the relocation of the surface water intake for the Village of Wellsville’s public water supply. The intake was moved to a location some distance upstream from the site in order to eliminate the possibility of landfill wastes contaminating the Village’s drinking water supply.In 1983 the Sinclair refinery site was declared a Superfund site by EPA and placed on the National Priorities List (NPL) of toxic sites. The relocation of the new water intake was completed in the Spring of 1988. According to one report, ARCO paid $3.3 million for Wellsville to relocate its water supply
In the early 1990s, EPA accepted a proposed $15.5 million ARCO plan to focus on the clean-up of the refinery site. By 1994, the surface soils at the main refinery site were excavated and replaced and revegetation followed. Ongoing at the time as well was pumping and treatment of contaminated site groundwater, plus monitoring of surface water, groundwater, and soil gas to track potential contaminant migration from subsurface soils. There was also separate work on the landfill portion of the site. In 1992, a partial rechannelization of the Genesee River was completed to protect the landfill from erosion and flooding. At this time, drum removal, excavation, consolidation, and backfilling of the landfill area was also completed. By 1994, the capping and fencing of the landfill was finished.
Since 1997, the EPA has conducted and publicly reported “five-year-reviews” on the Wellsville site cleanup and status to ensure that implemented remedies protect public health and the environment and that they continue function as intended. While the remediation work at the site was essentially completed in 2010, the EPA and DEC continue periodic sampling and maintenance at the site. One of the most recent “five year reviews” was issued in 2017.
The Fossil Legacy
The “Wellsville file” offers one case study of a portion of the fossil fuel industry’s performance and impact over a 100-year period – from oil boom through toxic clean-up. In the U.S. alone, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other cases of fossil-fuel-related performance history – history that tells of the industry’s reckless and often wasteful discovery phase, through its considerable, and yes, decades-long beneficial economic contributions (jobs, growth, wealth, invention, etc), as well as the worker risks, community dangers, and environmental impacts that came during those same periods of prosperity.
Whether abandoned oil and gas wells, pipeline leaks, refinery fires and pollution, tank farm contamination, gas station leaks, tanker truck accidents, offshore pollution, shipping spills, etc, the fossil fuel legacy of social and environmental costs – not even considering climate change – offers a considerable ledger of damages. To this day, the industry’s “routine” and operational impacts continue. And while some of these “externalities,” as economists call them, have been contained through regulation and improved technology, the net result has not been a clean or inherently safe fossil fuels industry. As a consequence, societies across the globe continue to absorb these costs, with ongoing risks to workers, the environment, and public health and safety. The alternative, of course, is the need to adopt clean and safe energy sources – a prospect that appears only possible if pushed by unyielding public demand.
For additional stories at this website on the performance history of the oil and petrochemical industries, see the “Oil & Petrochemical History” topics page with a dozen or more story choices.
Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle
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Date Posted: July 27, 2024
Last Update: July 27, 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com
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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The Wellsville File, Sinclair Oil:
1930s-1990s,”PopHistoryDig.com, July 27, 2024.
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Oil-Related History at Amazon.com…
 Brian Black’s book, “Petrolia: The Landscape of America's First Oil Boom,” Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, June 2000, Click for Amazon. |
 Upton Sinclair’s classic 1927 novel, “Oil!” includes Teapot Dome scandal & became basis for 2007 film, “There Will Be Blood.” Click for Amazon. |
 Ron Chernow’s 2004 best-seller, “Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller,” 832 pp, Vintage Paperback. Click for Amazon. |
Sources, Links & Additional Information
 Abridged version of Ida Tarbell’s classic profile of J.D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Co., “The History of the Standard Oil Company,” 272 pp. Click for Amazon. |
 John T. Arnold & Craig E. Colten (ed), “A Thousand Ways Denied: The Environmental Legacy of Oil in Louisiana ,” 2020, LSU Press, 282 pp. Click for Amazon. |
 2017 book: “One Minute After Sunrise: The Story of the Standard Oil Refinery Fire of 1955,” 246 pp. Click for copy. |
 2008 book: “Failure to Learn: The BP Texas City Disaster,” 200pp. Click for copy. |
 “Early Days of Oil: A Pictorial History of the Beginnings of the Industry in Pennsylvania,” by Paul H. Giddens, 1st edition, 1948, Princeton University Press. Click for book. |
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Oil/Petrochem Books at Amazon.com…
 Stephen McGinty’s 2008 book, “Fire in the Night: The Piper Alpha Disaster,” Macmillan, Click for Amazon. |
 Steve Coll’s book, “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power,” Penguin Books. 2013. Click for copy. |
 Christopher Leonard’s 2019 book, “Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries...” Click for copy. |
