Sohio in the 1930s

Sohio is probably the only major oil company whose primary brand name was limited to a single state.  A Sohio station was the first place I ever actively solicited maps, and if a person could be a fan of a brand, I was a Sohio fan in the 1960s.  The arrival of each year's Ohio map and then its annual revision (issued in the springtime and summer respectively, and denoted on the cover in a tiny "62A" and "62B" style) were significant events in my life.

The maps on this page go back to the 1930s.  The blue lettering of "SOHIO" and the ribbed logo appearance on the state map above was succeeded by a more modern image, which appears in stylized fashion on the Cleveland map from three years later.  That city map was issued to commemorate and diagram the 1936 Great Lakes Exposition -- a mostly forgotten bit of America's celebratory history.  

"Sohio" itself is now part of history; the brand name gave way, to the passing lament of many Ohioans and others who follow oil company happenings, to that of its acquirer, BP. 
 

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