Alameda
County
Biographies
WILLIAM S. RHEEM
The superintendent of the Pacific Coast Oil Company is one of the most experienced oil men in the United States, having spent practically all of his business life studying this great and extensively incorporated industry. Although making his residence in Oakland, he has contributed to the upbuilding of Point Richmond in many substantial and far-sighted ways, and his large heart, his business sagacity, and the example furnished by his clean and straightforward life, are appreciated by the community which houses a considerable item of the business of this branch of the Standard Oil Company. Mr. Rheem came to California in 1901, as superintendent of the Pacific Coast Oil Company, first taking charge of the small refinery at Alameda, and in December, 1901, beginning the erection of the large plant at Richmond, which is the terminal of the pipe line from Bakersfield. This pipe line is two hundred and seventy-eight miles long and has twenty pumping stations, and two hundred tanks of assorted sizes. The plant covers three hundred and twenty-five acres, and has a storage capacity of one million barrels. The wharf is a mile long and has an electric car line to facilitate business. The East Shore Suburban Railroad, completed July 16, 1904, and consisting of four miles of tract, extending from the refinery to the Southern Pacific depot. This is the first and only electric line in Contra Costa county, and its utility was first thought out by the capable manager and superintendent. It will easily be seen that Mr. Rheem's responsibility requires great executive ability, and a capacity for departmental organization.
Mr. Rheem was born in Minneapolis, Minn., March 14, 1862, and is the son of W. C. and Anna C. (Burkholder) Rheem, natives of Pennsylvania. W. C. Rheem was born in Carlisle, Pa., and was an attorney by profession and a man of side knowledge and pronounced business ability. After graduating from college and the law school he settled in Minneapolis, where he practiced law for a year, and then moved to Bannack, Mont., where he combined law, mining and politics, and was elected to the state legislature. Returning to Pennsylvania in 1865 he took advantage of the oil excitement and located in Franklin, where he speculated in oil and practiced law until his death in the fall of 1903, at the age of seventy years. He is survived by his wife and four children, two of whom are sons. William S., the third child, was educated in the public schools of Franklin, Pa., and as a boy used to engage in the oil business as a producer. In 1885 he engaged in the refinery business with an independent concern, and in 1887 became associated with the Standard Oil Company as an inspector. In 1890 he was foreman of construction of what was to be the largest refinery in the world, at Whiting, Ind., and with which he was connected as superintendent of eleven years. From Whiting he came to California to superintend the affairs of the Pacific Coast Oil Company, owned and controlled by the Standard Oil Company, leaving behind him in the Indiana community the good will of the entire town, of which he had been an important factor. He served as the first mayor and as a member and president of the school board.
The wife of Mr. Rheem was formerly Helena Stratton, a native of Erie, Pa. She is the mother of four sons: Harry, William, Jr., Donald and Richard. Mr. Rheem is a Republican and fraternally is a member of the Hammond, Ind., Lodge No. 485, B.P.O.E. He is a member of the Athenaeum Club of Oakland, in which city he owns a residence. He is popular with all classes in Point Richmond, as a business man and as the head of an enterprise of incalculable benefit to the community, not only because of the millions invested, but because it is one of the largest employers of labor on the Pacific coast, as well as one of the largest refineries in the world.
Transcribed
3-11-16 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
ญญญญSource: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 1050-1053. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
ฉ 2016 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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