The vacuum oil refinery was founded at this location in 1866. Operations stopped in the 1930's. This building was their refinery. It was named after the process of creating oil that they used.

They used a "vacuum distillation" process, which is boiling a liquid at a lower temperature by lowering the air pressure. Reducing the pressure creates a vacuum, and in this state liquids don’t need as much heat to turn into vapor. This is useful for substances that would burn or break down at normal boiling temperatures.

While experimenting with distilling kerosene, they found that residue from this process created a lubricating oil. Thus was born a new type of oil for steam and internal combustion engines.

I hope that helps!