Old Time Radio
When I am coming home during the 9 to 10 PM hour, I like to tune into the KNX Drama Hour. My favorites are 'Philip Marlowe', 'The Six Shooter' and 'Johnny Dollar'. For a while they played 'The Shadow', which I liked quite a bit. While looking up this information I found that they now have the last show online, which is cool. I'm sitting here listening 'The Six Shooter' using WMP (I wish they had a QuickTime feed).
9:00 PM KNX DRAMA HOUR - "The Whistler," starring Bill Forman in strange tales and hidden secrets. A train trip brings unexpected intrigue in, "The Clever Mr. Farley." Original air date 11-27-1949.
Tonight they played 'The Whistler' which was OK, but something else caught my attention. Many of these shows carry the advertising from the original show, in this case from a company called
the 'Signal Oil Company'. In the final blurb, they mentioned that they were from Los Angeles. Having never heard of them, I turned to the net to learn more.
Signal Oil also sponsored the Tarzan radio show as seen in the 'Signal News' excerpt here. Interesting to find a reference to KNX, way back then, I wonder if that's the same station? We find mention of Signal Oil in the gulf here, but I have no idea when this is from. At the Traveler newsletter, we learn that Signal Oil Company was:
Sold to Standard Oil of California (now Chevron) in 1947. Brand name used until sold to Humble Oil Company (now a division of ExxonMobil) in 1965 and then dropped.
At the Yorkston Oil Co., Inc. site we find much the same thing (now part of ExxonMobil). Here we find a roadmap from Signal Oil (and a few from Sinclair, which brought back some memories, they were big in New Jersey). I also found a picture of the Fine Arts building (aka Signal Oil building) from 1933. Here is more about the building.
Figuring I'd covered it, I stumbled onto this, which confused things greatly.
Apparently, Honeywell seems to think they got Signal Oil as part of their merger with AlliedSignal.
In 1985, Allied merged with the Signal Companies, adding critical mass to its aerospace, automotive and engineered materials businesses. Founded by Sam Mosher in 1922 as the Signal Gasoline Company, Signal was originally a California company that produced gasoline from natural gas. In 1928, the company changed its name to Signal Oil & Gas, entering into oil production the same year. Signal merged with the Garrett Corporation, a Los Angeles-based aerospace company, and in 1968 adopted the Signal Companies as its corporate name.
My guess is the oil business was sold off to Enco, which became Exxon (and now ExxonMobil). The parent company eventually became AlliedSignal, which is now part of Honeywell. Aren't corporate mergers and acquisitions grand?
11:47:46 PM 
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