Malco Photos
1967 Malco map from David Aldred.
1990 vintage Mug showing Malco and some other brands. From David Aldred.
A Malco sign submitted by Patrick McCauley
A three-pump Malco station in Gallup, New Mexico on old Route 66.
This must be one of the last.
Taken May, 2004 by David Aldred.
Note: David later talked to the manager who stated they were independent.
Close-ups of both sides of the sign at the above Gallup, NM site.
Taken May, 2004 by David Aldred.
The same station as above, taken in 1997 by Ian Byrne.
This is the same station as above, taken in 1994 by Walt Wimer.
Walt's history on this brand:
Originally it was Malco Refineries, Inc., with headquarters in Roswell, NM and a small refinery
at nearby Artesia. It was only 11,500 b/d in 1959, but still the largest of New Mexico's 7
refineries, including a small Conoco also at Artesia. Sometime in 1959, or the very early 60s,
Conoco bought them out. However, the feds said Conoco had too much of the New Mexico market
and made them sell Malco off a few years later. While Conoco owned them the company was known
as Malco Products, Inc., and still had headquarters in Roswell. Later they were owned by
Suburban Propane Co. which also owned Plateau at the same time. Later Suburban got out of
gasoline refining and marketing and I think that is when Thriftway took over the two brands.
Later Thriftway sold off at least part of its operation to Giant Industries. They also had
the GAS MAN brand, which as I remember had two stations in Gallup, one on each end of old
Route 66. Malco also had two "secondary" brands, at least before Conoco took them over.
They were NUMEX and VALLEY. The NUMEX map I have seen listed the company as
"Numex Asphalt & Refining Co." or something like that, so I think it was originally
independent of Malco, and I bet Valley was also. Both brands had pump globes and road maps,
but all are very scarce. I saw less than a handful of VALLEY and NUMEX stations in New Mexico
in 1958-59 and none of them had anything in the way of branding except for the pump globes.
There are at least three MALCO maps, a nice full color photo issue of the 40s by Gousha, a
Rand McNally generic of the late 40s/early 50s and a light yellow cover issue from Gousha
in the early 60s when owned by Conoco. I suspect they did not issue maps in the late 50s as
I was not able to come up with any during my travels and have not seen such since.
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