The C & H Refinery in Lusk was a small operation that reflected a larger transformation in the oil business. In the late nineteenth century, many small refineries with limited capital and simple technology appeared near oil fields across the nation, distilling crude oil and separating its components into storage tanks as they turned to steam at successive boiling points. In the early 1910s and 1920s, that process and most small refineries were displaced as a few companies came to control refining and adopted more sophisticated technology that caused molecular change in petroleum, leaving almost all of the older small refineries gone. In 1933, Roy Chamberlain and James Robin, employees of the Ohio Oil Company, opened their own refinery in Lusk using obsolete but functional equipment from a closed refinery in Casper and two stills manufactured in the late nineteenth century. It refined petroleum into water, naphtha, kerosene, and diesel, with antique machinery, manual controls, a modest work force, and a capacity of only 190 barrels a day. Even so, it continued operating and selling home heating oil to the Lusk community until it closed in 1978. In 2000, after a new owner cleaned and fired up the stills again to demonstrate that the refinery could still operate, an older technology and small-business energy briefly returned to life.