Louis Blaustein immigrated to the United States from his parents’ home in Lithuania in 1883, at the age of fourteen. He became a peddler, traveling from farm to farm in eastern Pennsylvania. Later, he settled in Baltimore, where he married Henrietta Gittelsohn and had five children, three of whom survived into adulthood: Jacob Blaustein (1892), Fanny Blaustein Thalheimer (1895) and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg (1899).

In the early years of the twentieth century, Louis and Jacob Blaustein began delivering kerosene from a horse-drawn wagon through the streets of Baltimore. In 1910, they founded the American Oil Company (Amoco) in a one-room office in a converted stable. The company’s innovations included one of the first drive-in gas stations, the first gasoline pump to show the motorist the amount of fuel received, and the original antiknock gasoline that permitted the development of the high-compression engine.

Today, the Blaustein family is represented by three businesses: American Trading and Production Corporation (Atapco), Lord Baltimore Capital Corporation, and Rosemore, Inc.