APCO Oil Corporation was incorporated in 1960, when outside investors purchased a remnant of the venerable old Oklahoma company, Anderson-Prichard Oil Corporation, including its marketing and distribution units. It operated service stations throughout Oklahoma and adjacent states until its dissolution in 1979, and its familiar trademark is still spotted occasionally on independent service stations in rural Oklahoma.

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The name “APCO” conjures up memories of those legendary wildcatters who kicked off the Oklahoma oil boom in the early 20th century, especially Lev H. Prichard, who led Anderson-Prichard from 1919 until his death from cancer in 1949, and afterwards his widow, Louise Melton Prichard, who was a major stockholder and an influential board member until the company’s sale in 1960. Though the Anderson-Prichard Oil Corporation did not acquire rights to the trademark “APCO” until 1954, company headquarters—APCO Tower—dominated the Oklahoma City skyline for decades and the acronym was often used informally to refer to the company.

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Later, Lev Prichard III, 1937–2009, remembering the company’s first modern service station in Oklahoma City, which his dad opened, as well as his weekly Saturday visits to APCO Tower with his grandfather as a child, formed Apco Minerals, LLP, in 1995 to manage the family’s legacy mineral rights. Since his death in 2009, his widow, Ella Wall Prichard, has managed Apco Minerals, participating in the current shale oil boom in Oklahoma.