Co., American Oil Co., The Pure Oil Co., Phillips Petroleum Co., The Cities Service Co. and Continental Oil Co. filed incorporation papers in Delaware to establish the Suwannee Pipe Line Company "for the purpose of building a 22-inch line from Houston to the Baltimore-Washington area capable of delivering 300,000 barrels of refined products a day." Construction of Colonial Pipeline's original system started in 1961. 1962 During February 1962, the board of the Suwannee Pipe Line Company met to rename the company. It chose Colonial Pipeline Company to represent the fact that the proposed pipeline would traverse several states that were former colonies. Mobil joined the other eight companies in 1962. On March 6, 1962, Colonial Pipeline Company formally announced its plans. A press release stated that the nine companies "launched the largest single, privately financed construction project in the history of the United States." The initial investment by the nine companies was almost $370 million. R.J. Andress was named president of the newly formed company. Constructing the Colonial Pipeline required 600,000 tons of steel; and trenching 16.7 million cubic yards of earth to bury the pipeline. It initially included 27 pumping stations to move refined product between Houston, Texas and Linden, New Jersey. A ceremonial ground-breaking near Atlanta, the pipeline's eventual headquarters, on June 20, 1962, was attended by U.S. Commerce Secretary Luther Hodges and company, city and state officials. On July 2, 1962, Colonial Pipeline Company solicited bids from contractors to build 15 segments of the pipeline's mainline. Each segment averaged 100 miles and 200–300 workers. Work progressed at roughly one mile per day for each of the segments. The first lengths of pipe were delivered by rail, barge, and on specially constructed trailers to handle 80-foot double joints on the road. Construction started on August 1, 1962, in Mississippi. In December 1962, Ben "Tex" Leuty was named president of Colonial Pipeline Company. He had earlier served as vice president and general manager overseeing construction of the pipeline. 1963 Engineers needed to solve many problems to construct the pipeline. Chief among these was designing and constructing valves capable of opening and closing 2-ton steel gates in a timely manner to prevent substantial intermingling of different products. Electric motors required 3 minutes to close the massive gates; this allowed 2,400 barrels of product to intermix, rendering the product unusable. To reduce this intermixing, Colonial engineers designed a hydraulic system which