Joseph S. Cullinan

Joseph S. Cullinan was an American petroleum industrialist, born in Pennsylvania, who became a central figure in the early Texas oil industry after the 1901 discovery of the Spindletop oilfield. In 1902 he founded The Texas Company, which he led as president until 1913, building storage and refining operations that gave the firm a strong competitive position during the state's oil boom. In 1909 Cullinan moved the company's headquarters to Houston, a decision other oil companies followed and that helped establish Houston as the center of the American oil industry. The Texas Company was renamed Texaco Incorporated in 1959, more than two decades after Cullinan's death in 1937.