Price Company
Frank Lloyd Wright built Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, commissioned by Harold C. Price, founder of H.C. Price Company. Completed in 1956, the 19-story building served as the corporate headquarters for the H.C. Price Pipeline Company. The H.C. Price Pipeline Company began when Harold (Hal) Charles Price, Sr. founded an electric welding business in Bartlesville, Oklahoma during the late 1920's. The company specialized in field welding of oil storage tanks. In conjunction with this operation, Hal Price was responsible for many innovations in electric welding including the first practical application of electric welding in pipeline construction. Over the years, Price grew from a welding subcontracting business into a major cross-country pipeline contractor.
H.C. Price was instrumental in the development of modern pipeline construction techniques used world wide to this day, such as:
- Developed use of electrical welding of pipelines, the use of removable back up rings for use during welding, and the so called "stove pipe" method of pipeline assembly.
- Developed and pioneered the use of pipe coatings for protections against corrosion and for buoyancy control.
- Constructed the first "Big Inch" pipeline, during WWII in the Continental US.
- Constructed the first Arctic pipeline in North America, during WWII, in the NW Territories, CA.
- Constructed many major pipeline systems in northern Africa, the Middle East, and Iran during the 1970's.
- Constructed Section 3 of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System.
- First to introduce use of mechanized welding in the USA and the first to successfully use it on Duplex stainless steel in Prudhoe Bay in a production mode during bitter winter conditions.