This compressor went into use in Culberson County, Texas, on October 1, 1931, and served until 1969, aiding in the rise of the Southwest as an industrial center. It was the first compressor transmission engine at the number one transmission station of El Paso Natural Gas Company, which was founded in 1928 by Houston attorney Paul Kayser. The station was one of the earliest in the Permian Basin. A Cooper-Bessemer Type 19, the machine was an 800-horsepower horizontal tandem reciprocating compressor engine equipped with two 10 1/4-inch by 24-inch gas compressor cylinders and weighing about 173,000 pounds. It served under load for 152,064 hours, compressing more than 144 billion cubic feet of natural gas during its working lifetime. It conveyed production from fields at Jal, New Mexico, and in Winkler County, Texas, to the 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.