those with storage tanks were between and big. The plain, utilitarian buildings were initially prefabricated steel constructs, but as supplies grew scarce, wood was used instead. As much as of materials was needed for the total project. Completion Work on the Inch pipelines began immediately after the establishment of the WEP on June 26, 1942. They were built in three phases. The first part to be constructed was the Big Inch, its initial leg running to an interim terminal at Norris City, where oil was to be off-loaded to the railroad network. Once this leg was complete, it was extended to its terminus at Phoenixville. When the Big Inch was complete, work began on the third phase of the project, the Little Big Inch. The first purchase order, for of 24-inch-diameter pipe, was placed on July 2, 1942. To meet a construction deadline of January 1, 1943, the laying of pipe began on August 3, 1942, near Little Rock. Other pipeline crews began work immediately on segments elsewhere in Arkansas and Texas. By September 10 all eight pipelaying crews, each consisting of between 300 and 400 men, were in the field working. The schedule called for of the Big Inch pipeline to be laid each day. But soon men were laying as much as a day. In all, roughly of material were excavated. Oil began flowing through the Big Inch Line between Texas and Illinois on New Year's Eve 1942. Work on the Little Big Inch then began in 1943. The first crude oil arrived at Phoenixville via the Big Inch on August 14, 1943, and the first refined product in the Little Big Inch arrived on March 2, 1944. The Big Inch carried up to 334,456 barrels of crude oil a day, the Little Big Inch 239,844 barrels of gasoline; the lines were among the largest industrial consumers of electricity in the US, requiring 3.89 million kilowatt hours a day to pump the oil along the pipes. Construction process, recorded by John Vachon Post-war sale By the end of the war, there was considerable debate over the future of the pipelines. The major oil companies, such as Standard Oil, campaigned for the conversion of the pipelines for the transfer of natural gas. Engineers contracted to the US Surplus Property Administration proposed using the lines for natural gas, and the Tennessee Gas and Transmission Company conducted a four-month trial. Demand