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Pipeliners laying the "Big Inch" oil line at Brandywine Creek near Glen Moore, PA, winter, 1943.
Credit: Image donated by Corbis-Bettmann
When completed in July 1943, the Big Inch oil pipeline, stretching 1,388 miles from Longview Texas to Pennsylvania and New Jersey, was the longest in the world. Constructed at a cost of $95m, the line needed 21 million gallons to fill it, the equivalent of 21,000 railroad cars. It took thirteen days for oil to travel from Longview Texas to Philadelphia.