[1] The company was formed to exploit the newly discovered sulfur deposit in the Big Hill salt dome near Matagorda, Texas,[3] using the Frasch process.

With the Frasch method, the underground sulphur deposit has superheated water pumped into it, with the sulfur then extracted when it melts.

[1] In 1927, the company started developing the sulfur deposit associated with the Boling Dome in Wharton County, Texas.

In late 1962 and early 1963, trades in the stock of the company before and immediately after the publication of estimates of the mine's potential value led to an investigation by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

The resulting opinion in SEC v. Texas Gulf Sulphur Co. was a landmark of the jurisprudence of insider trading in the United States.

v. Texas Gulf Sulphur became the first insider trading case to be litigated in federal courts in American history, making the beginning of disgorgement in S.E.C.

That year, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan upheld an order that Texas Gulf had to repay profits it earned as a result of insider trading, as "remedial relief" but not a penalty assessment by the S.E.C.