DUANE
Duane's take
Well, the marker tells it this way, and I'm just gonna pass it along to you straight. Now, most landmarks out here in West Texas are rivers or ruins or some stretch of lonesome highway that changed the course of things. But this one — this one is a machine.
And not just any machine. A Cooper-Bessemer Type 19, if you want the full name. Eight hundred horsepower.
Horizontal tandem reciprocating compressor engine. Two cylinders, each ten and a quarter inches by twenty-four inches. And when you put it all together, you've got something that weighs in right around a hundred and seventy-three thousand pounds.
That's not a tool. That's a statement. The marker calls it a landmark tool in man's conquest of energy, and after you hear what this thing did, you might just agree.
It went into service out in Culberson County, Texas, on October the first, nineteen thirty-one. And it didn't stop. It ran, and ran, and ran — under load — for a hundred and fifty-two thousand and sixty-four hours.
Let that sink in for a second out there on that highway. A hundred and fifty-two thousand hours of work. In that time, it compressed more than a hundred and forty-four billion cubic feet of natural gas.
Billion. With a B. It was pulling production from fields out at Jal, New Mexico, and over in Winkler County, Texas, and it was sending all of that gas moving — to the city of El Paso, to southern New Mexico, to Arizona.
Now, the company behind all this was El Paso Natural Gas Company, founded in nineteen twenty-eight by a Houston attorney named Paul Kayser. And that pioneer transmission station where this engine first turned over — it was one of the earliest in the Permian Basin. The very first compressor transmission engine at the number one transmission station.
First of its kind in a system that would eventually stretch to twenty-two thousand miles of forwarding lines, reaching households and industries across eleven western states. The marker says it aided in the rise of the southwest as an industrial empire, and it did its part quietly, down in Culberson County, turning over and turning over until nineteen sixty-nine when it finally came to rest after thirty-eight years of service. Some things earn their place in history by being loud.
This one earned it by never stopping.
What the marker says
A landmark tool in man's conquest of energy. This compressor went into use in Culberson County, Tex., on Oct. 1, 1931, and served until 1969, aiding in the rise of the southwest as an industrial empire. This was the first compressor transmission engine at the number one transmission station of El Paso natural gas company, founded in 1928 by Paul Kayser, a Houston attorney. The pioneer transmission station of the El Paso natural gas company was one of the earliest in the permian basin. A cooper-bessemer type 19, this machine is an 800-horsepower horizontal tandem reciprocating compressor engine. Equipped with two 10 1/4-inch by 24-inch gas compressor cylinders, it weigh about 173,000 pounds. It served under load for 152,064 hours, compressing more than 144 billion cubic feet of natural gas in its working lifetime. It conveyed production from fields at Jal, N. M., and in Winkler County, Tex., to city of El Paso and southern New Mexico and Arizona. It was the first machine of its kind in a system that expanded into 22,000 miles of forwarding lines furnishing low-cost energy for industries and households in eleven western states.