Wallace Libby Hardison was one of the founders of Union Oil

Unocal Corporation

Union Oil Company of California, dba Unocal is a defunct company that was a major petroleum explorer and marketer in the late 19th century, through the 20th century, and into the early 21st century. It was headquartered in El Segundo, California, United States.On August 10, 2005, Unocal merged...

.

Hardison was born in Caribou

Caribou, Maine

Caribou is the second largest city in Aroostook County, Maine, United States. Its population was 8,189 at the 2010 census.-History:Between 1838 and 1839, the undeclared Aroostook War flared between the United States and Canada, and the Battle of Caribou occurred in December 1838...

, Aroostook County, Maine

Aroostook County, Maine

Aroostook County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maine. In 2010, its population was 71,870. In land area, it is the largest county in the state and the largest U.S. county east of the Mississippi River. Its seat is Houlton...

, the youngest of eleven children. He followed his brother, James Henry Hardison, to the oil fields of Western Pennsylvania

Western Pennsylvania

Western Pennsylvania consists of the western third of the state of Pennsylvania in the United States. Pittsburgh is the largest city in the region, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic and cultural center. Erie, Altoona, and Johnstown are its...

. At first, they worked as field hands, but eventually befriended Milton and Lyman Stewart

Lyman Stewart

Lyman Stewart was a U.S. businessman and cofounder of Union Oil, which eventually became Unocal. Stewart was also a significant Christian philanthropist and cofounder of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles...

. After John D. Rockefeller

John D. Rockefeller

John Davison Rockefeller was an American oil industrialist, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of...

 had effectively taken control of the Western Pennsylvania oil fields, Lyman Stewart and Wallace Hardison went to Santa Paula in Southern California

Southern California

Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...

 in 1883 to develop the newly-discovered oil fields there. The original venture was called Hardison & Stewart Oil Company. A few years later, Stewart and Hardison joined forces with Thomas Bard and Paul Calonico to form the Union Oil Company.

Hardison eventually sold out his share of Union Oil and invested a portion of the proceeds in a Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

vian gold mine called the Santo Domingo.

Wallace Hardison was killed when his car was struck by a train in Roscoe, California in 1909.

"Wallace Hardison was a massive man with bristling, black mustaches, an elastic, impatient stride, and a restlessly brilliant mind. Desk work and details were not for him, and he loved the hurly-burly of the oil fields almost as much as he loved good horseflesh. Quick to act, and quicker still to make decisions requiring action, he was genial, friendly, outgoing, impulsive, and generous to a fault. Espousing the Universalist faith, he lacked Stewart's compulsive piety."