The Great Gasoline Shift: Kennewick Becomes Standard Oil’s New Hub
As the Columbia River town prepares to replace Pasco as the central distribution point for gasoline in the region, locals watch the logistics of early 20th-century commerce reshape their identity.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The return labels on more than 150 gasolene tanks were changed yesterday to read Kennewick instead of Pasco. This is one of the preliminary steps of the Standard’s plans to make Kennewick the central distributing point for this section of the country. The Pasco station will not be discontinued but will be maintained to supply only local business while all shipping will be done from the Kennewick station which will be in operation by the middle of the month.
In 1914, the designation of a 'central distributing point' was a massive economic win for a developing town like Kennewick, signaling industrial maturity and logistical importance. Today, this mirrors how modern infrastructure projects—like fiber optic hubs or renewable energy distribution centers—determine which communities thrive economically while others stagnate.
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