Oil and Gas Logos

A winged neon reminder of its oil heritage soars above Dallas on the former Magnolia Petroleum building. Project Pegasus saved this high-flying trademark.

Perched atop the former oil company’s headquarters building, now a luxury hotel, the red winged oil patch icon welcomes visitors. The Mobil Oil Company’s Pegasus trademark has been a feature of the Dallas skyline since welcoming a national oil and gas convention in 1934.

The red Pegasus remains among the most recognized corporate symbols in American petroleum history. Although the Dallas skyscraper’s twin flying red horses – one on each side – no longer rotate, the neon glow is once again bright.

Editor’s Update – An April 10, 2015, column by Paul O’Donnell, editor-in-chief-of the Dallas Business Journal, reports: “The original Pegasus that once reigned atop the downtown Dallas headquarters of Magnolia Petroleum Co. and later Mobil Oil Co. will soon have a high-profile home outside one of the skyline’s newest additions. Over the next two weeks, crews will install the restored original flying horse sign in front of the Omni Dallas Hotel on Lamar Street.”

When the 400-foot-tall Magnolia Petroleum building opened in 1922, it was the city’s first skyscraper – and tallest building west of the Mississippi River.

With 29 floors and seven elevators, the Magnolia building towered over the nearby Adolphus Hotel, built in 1913. It also was first high rise in the United States to have air conditioning, according to the management company that acquired the building in 1997.

Today, with much of the original architecture’s classical design and gold leaf restored in 1999, the Dallas Magnolia Hotel has become a “boutique hotel” blending its past with modern amenities.

After the 1922 opening, a local reporter described the Magnolia – which cost the oil company $4 million to build – as “a great peg driven into the ground holding Dallas in its place.”

In 1925, when Standard Oil of New York (Socony) acquired Magnolia Petroleum Company, the Dallas headquarters building was included. Nine years later Pegasus would land on the roof.

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