September 5, 1927 – Schlumberger Brothers invent Electric Well Logging

In 1927, the Schlumberger brothers add a new technology to petroleum exploration and production -- a downhole electronic "logging tool."

A technology that will revolutionize the search for oil and natural gas – an electric downhole well log — is first applied near Pechelbronn, France.

After successfully developing an electrical four-probe surface approach for mineral exploration, brothers Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger adapt their surface system to operate vertically.
 
Lowering their new tool into a well, the Schlumberger brothers record a single lateral-resistivity curve at fixed points in the well’s borehole and graphically plot the results against depth — creating a well log of geologic formations. Changes in subsurface resistance readings show variations and possible oil and natural gas producing areas. From this well-logging beginning, Schlumberger will become a leading worldwide oilfield service company.

September 5, 1885 – Birth of the “Filling Station” Pump

Gas pumps with dials were followed by calibrated glass cylinders, notes a 1955 Popular Science article. Meter pumps using a small glass globe with a turbine inside replaced the measuring cylinder as pumps continued to evolve.

The modern gasoline-pump design is invented by Sylvanus F. (Freelove) Bowser, who sells his first pump to a  grocery store in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
 
Designed to safely dispense kerosene as well as “burning fluid, and the light combustible products of petroleum,” the pump holds 42 gallons. It uses marble valves, a wooden plunger and an upright faucet.

This 1916 S. F. Bowser Company gasoline pump operated by a hand crank using a rack and pinion system. A "clock face" shaped dial let the consumer know how much gas had been pumped. Photo from the Smithsonian Collection.

With the pump’s popular success at Jake Gumper’s Fort Wayne grocery store, Bowser forms the S. F. Bowser Company and patents his invention in 1887.
 
Within a decade — as the automobile’s popularity grows — Bowser’s company adapts and becomes hugely successful. By 1905 (the same year the world’s first gasoline station is built in St. Louis, Missouri) the S. F. Bowser “Self-Measuring Gasoline Storage Pump” is soon known to motorists as a “filling station.”

The original Bowser pump consists of a square metal tank with a wooden cabinet equipped with a suction pump operated by hand-stroke lever action. It includes a hose attachment for dispensing gasoline directly into the automobile fuel tank. 

With the addition of competing businesses such as Wayne Pump Company and Tokheim Oil Tank & Pump Company, the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, becomes the gas pump capital of the world. Learn more about gas pumps, pump globes, oil cans and signs at Petroleum Collectibles Monthly.

September 7, 1917 – Hogg Wells do Well
 
After drilling 20 dry holes, the Tyndall-Wyoming Oil Company completes the No. 1 Hogg well as a small producer 50 miles south of Houston, Texas. Four months later a second well produces about 600 barrels a day. These wells end the succession of dry holes dating back to 1901 — when former Texas Governor Jim Hogg paid $30,000 for the lease. Governor Hogg dies 11 years before his two wells prove the West Columbia oilfield to be highly productive. Fortunately for his family, he had stipulated in his will that the mineral rights should not be sold for 15 years after his death. The field yields more than 119,000 barrels of oil in 1918 alone.
 
September 7, 1923 – Dominguez Hills Oil Discovery 

Frederick Burnham

In an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County known as Dominguez Hills, independent oilman Frederick Russell Burnham brings in a well at a depth of 4,068 feet. His company, Burnham Exploration, is partnered with Union Oil Company of California.

Burnham’s 1,193 barrel per day producer opens the Dominguez Hills oilfield — a two-square mile, two-mile deep stack of eight producing zones. By 1933, Burnham’s company pays out $10.2 million to stockholders. The site is now home to a state university.

The California State University Dominguez Hills notes that it is named for the family of Juan Jose Dominguez, a Spanish soldier who received a grant of 75,000 acres for grazing cattle from the governor of the Spanish province of California in 1784. “But family fortunes truly took off with discovery of oil in the 1920s, first in the Torrance area and then, most resoundingly, on Dominguez Hill itself, where productive wells functioned for a half century.” Visit the California Oil Museum in Santa Paula — in the historic headquarters building of the Union Oil Company.

September 9, 1928 – Oklahoma governs Oil Production
 
For the first time, a state regulatory body issues a proration order that governs oil production for an entire state. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission sets the state’s oil production limit to 700,000 barrels daily and limits “production of new wildcat wells to 100 barrels a day.” The commission allocates 425,000 barrels a day for newly discovered fields such as the Greater Seminole (the premier high-gravity U.S. oilfield in 1928) and 275,000 barrels a day for older oilfields.

September 11, 1866 – Turning Kerosene into a Lubricant

Beginning in 1866, "Ewing's Patent Vacuum Oil" preserved and lubricated leather harnesses.

Carpenter and part-time inventor Matthew P. Ewing patents a method of distilling kerosene in a vacuum to produce lubricants. Three weeks later, with partner Hiram Bond Everest, he founds Vacuum Oil Company in Rochester, New York. Their first product is “Ewing’s Patent Vacuum Oil,” extolled for its virtues as a leather conditioner and preserver.
 
Ewing leaves the partnership, but Everest continues to develop vacuum produced lubricants such as Vacuum Harness Oil, which he initially distributes in square containers previously used for canned oysters. The company prospers with the production of heavy lubricating oils. In 1880, Everest sells 75 percent of Vacuum Oil to John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil for $200,000.

Last Week in Petroleum History

Editor’s Note — Happy birthday, Nadine.