Julius I. Lamprecht
Founder and President
The National Refining Company
1853-1920

J. I. Lamprecht was born July 14, 1853, at Cardington, Ohio.  There he started his ji.gif (12822 bytes)business career in a bank. He married Miss Katherine Prophet, Cardington, Ohio, in 1878. He then moved to Cleveland, Ohio two years later where he entered the oil business under the name, the National Oil Company.

In 1884 this company became incorporated as The National Refining Company with capital stock of $50,000. A couple of years later the capital was increased to $100,000, after which every few years another hundred or two hundred thousand were added, until in 1920 at the time of his death the capital value of the company he founded 40 years earlier was now worth about $50,000,000.

The growth of the National Refining Company has been one of gradual consistent expansion. The policy of turning out a better product than the standard generally maintained by its contemporaries, and charged correspondingly more for it, had proven a successful one. After founding the institution which grew into the National Refining Company, the first enlargement took place when an arrangement was made with L. D. Mix, a Cleveland refiner, under which agreement the National assumed the responsibility for marketing the output of the Mix plant. Later a similar arrangement added the refining plant of the Sun Oil Company to the organization. In 1897 the Peerless Oil Company's plant at Findlay, Ohio was acquired by the National, and at about the same time the refinery of the Globe Oil Company in Cleveland was acquired.

In 1906 The National Refining Company, like many others, built a plant in the west (Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas). They erected a refinery at Coffeyville, Kansas. Also this same year they took over a plant at Marietta, Ohio. Two years later in 1908 the company acquired a controlling interest in the Canadian Oil Companies, Limited. This increased its refining facilities to five plants. In the meantime producing lands, pipe lines and distributing stations enumerated among the company's assets. By 1920 the company had large production in Kansas, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and several sub-classifications of the oil producing fields in the southwest.

Mr. Lamprecht was possibly the largest single stockholder in the company. He was respected, judged as a man of unusual judgement and foresight, devoted to his business, energetic and of proverbial integrity. One of his chief assets was his ability to select capable coworkers and efficient salesmen. He nursed the struggling oil company for 40 years through panics and oil business depressions.

He was a pioneer in the oil business and at the time of his death was one of the prominent figures in the industry. Besides being head of the National Refining Company he was president of the Swiss Oil Corporation and the Conneaut Water Company, and was a member of the directorate of the Atlas Oil Company, Globe Refining Company, Union Commerce National Bank, Cleveland Trust Company, Union Mortgage Company, and Cleveland Erieau Steamship Company. He was a member of the Union Club and the Country Club of Cleveland.

Mr. Lamprecht had one son W. H. Lamprecht and two daughters, Mrs. E. I. Mason and Mrs. J. G. Dobbins.

J. I. died at the age of 67 on October 4, 1920 following an operation for appendicitis in a hospital at Atlantic City, N.J. He was in Atlantic City attending the annual convention of the National Petroleum Association.

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