28 Company, which owned considerable land in Ventura County, a number of oil storage tanks, a number of pipe lines, and a small refinery . He had a thriv- ing business transporting and marketing -oil for-oi:h'e r .- producers . Mr. Bard . was receptive to their idea of launching a new company to drill in Sespe Canyon, on land already proved, and which Hardison and Stewart controlled through leases. Thus, in 18B6 the Sespe Oil Company was formed, with Bard as its President . In December, 1886 the informal partnership between Hardison and Stewart was finally terminated . They had concluded that the financing of their num- erous operations had become too involved and that it was wise to form a single corporation to handle all their business affairs . As a result, the Hardison and Stewart Oil Company was officially incorporated in the State of California, with capital assets of one million dollars. Lyman Stewart was its President and Wallace Hardison Vice-President and General Manager . A.~ong the other incorporators was Thomas Bard . For the next two years the Company moved along at a normal pace . Suddenly, their "Adams Canyon Number Sixteen" came in as a real gusher, the first of its type in California . This partially compensated for some of their past failures in Adams Canyon. In 1889, an offer was made by an Eastern Syndicate to purchase the forty-nine percent of the stock the three Companies controlled, namely the Hardison and Stewart Oil Cor:i.pany, the Mission Transfer Company , and .the Sespe Oil Company . The condition under which the offer was made was that the three Companies must be merged into one large corporation which would own all the properties . An official appraisal was . ·• made and the three owners . were astounded when .they learned that the appraised value of their holdings was in the amount of one Billion dollars . For some reason, the Eastern Syndicate did not exercise its option, and the .. sale was never consunrnated. After studying the size of their three con- panies, they decided it was time to merge them into a single corporation,
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