Florus Baxter Collection of Vacuum Oil Company Pay Roll Books

Vacuum Oil operated a refinery from approximately 1866 to 1930 on a 30 to 40 acre piece of land along the Genesee River east of Exchange Street to both the north and south of Flint Street in Rochester, New York. The company originated in the experimental work of Rochester carpenter Matthew Ewing, who developed a method for the vacumm distillation of kerosene in 1866. The technique was not commercially viable for kerosene production, but left by-products that Ewing soon realized made excellent lubricating oil. He patented the process with his partner Hiram Bond Everest, and established the Vacuum Oil Company in October 1866, specializing in oils for the tanning industry. In 1879, Standard Oil purchsed a 75% share in the company for $200,000.

With the breakup of the Standard Oil Trust in 1911, Vacuum Oil once again became an independent company. It merged with the Standard Oil Company of New York (SOCONY) in 1931, forming Socony-Vacuum Corporation. The name was modified to Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. Inc. two years later, then to Socony Mobil Oil Co. Inc. in 1955 and to Mobil Oil Corp. in 1966.

The Rochester site was shut down and abandoned around the time of the Socony-Vacuum merger. During the sixty-some years of its operation, crude oil, kerosene, naphtha, finished lubrication products and containers for all of the above were stored on the site. Substantial leakage, along with other contamination (including volatile organic compounds, PCBs, and asbestos), occurred on the site. Due to the heavy soil and groundwater contamination, the site was never redeveloped after its abandonment and is considered a brownfield as of the writing of this finding aid (2020).