El Paso Marker
Historical Marker Reads:

ODESSA (Ector Co.)Permian Basin Gil Show Grounds
US 38S at 4400 Andrews Highway
El Paso Natural Gas Company's First Compressor Transmission Engine

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 10 114-inch by 24-inch gas compressor cylinders, it weighs about 173,000 pounds. It served under load for 152,064 hours, com pressing 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.
(1970)

El Paso Compressor Building
Located in Northern part of Ector County Show Grounds north of the Cable Tool Rig in the fenced area. The foreground is cluttered with material for the upcoming International Oil Show of 1998.


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updated: 9/21/98