Just because you’re an oil company research facility, doesn’t mean you can’t be pleasing to the eye. This 1952 photo was taken at the Union Oil Research Center, which had opened the year before at 376 S. Valencia Ave, Brea, roughly 25 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. You’ve got to love the typeface they chose to let people know what happened inside this glass-fronted building.

The building stood on the northeast corner of the Imperial Highway and S. Valencia Ave. It was demolished in 2010. This image is from January 2021 and shows us that a restaurant called Jerry’s Famous American Tavern now occupies that site.