>>Some years ago the Standard Oil co. which produced gasoline under the name "Esso"...

>Standard Oil also became Chevron...

for the record, in 1911 J.D. Rockerfeller's Standard Oil Trust was broken up into something like 32 small companies. the major players left standing today include Standard Oil of New Jersey (Esso/Exxon), Standard Oil of New York (Socony/Mobil), Standard Oil [California] (Chevron), Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio, arm of BP), Standard Oil of Indiana (Amoco), Continental Oil (Conoco), and Atlantic Richfield (ARCO). Each of these could market under the Standard brand in its respective region, but when they started to challenge each other regionally, and later nationally, they had to change brand names to avoid lawsuits. in our region, the Standard name came down, and became Amoco, although the logo looked the same otherwise.