The story
Founded by John D. Rockefeller in 1911.1
Under the name "The Standard Oil Company (Ohio)", the company was established as a separate business after the antitrust breakup the oil conglomerate's monopoly in 1911. It operated service stations under the 'Sohio' brand name in Ohio but was prohibited in using the 'Standard' name in other states. In nearby states, it used the Boron brand name (introduced in 1954) instead, but with an otherwise-similar logo. Wallace Trevor Holliday was President of the company from 1928 to 1949 and Chairman of the Board from 1949 until his death on November 7, 1950.
In 1968, Sohio's CEO, Charles E. Spahr (Charlie), arranged a merger with BP. It was announced as Standard's acquisition of BP's North American interests in exchange for BP receiving 25% of Sohio's stock. However, the contract included a stipulation that BP would assume majority interest when Standard's share of production from the Prudhoe Bay oilfield in Alaska reached 600,000 barrels per day (95,000 m3/d). That occurred in 1978, and BP then took control of Standard Oil. The U.S. operations were unified under the BP America corporate name.
By 1991, BP had rebranded all Sohio and Boron retail stations as 'BP', except for some marine fuel outlets.
In 2011, a BP station in Steubenville, Ohio, that had originally opened as a Sohio station in 1946 ended fuel sales and was restored to 1970s vintage Sohio colors as a museum for Sohio. The site has vintage (inoperable) Sohio pumps and other Sohio memorabilia. The garage itself remains active.
From Wikipedia’s article on Standard Oil Company (Ohio), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4