Sept. 5, 1885: Pay at the Pump

Link:

1885: Sylvanus F. Bowser delivers the first gasoline pump. It improves safety, but can't guarantee low prices.

The automobile was yet to be invented, and gasoline was a byproduct of refining kerosene for stoves and lamps. Some of that equipment could use gasoline, but it wasn't much in demand.

You bought fuel in a general, hardware or grocery store. You had to bring your own gallon (or whatever) can, and the storekeeper would ladle the flammable fluid from a barrel. Wasteful. Messy. Dangerous.

To reduce spillage, Bowser built a pump in his Fort Wayne, Indiana, barn. He sold and delivered the first one to Fort Wayne merchant Jake Gumper 123 years ago today.

The self-contained unit included a wooden storage barrel, marble valves, a wooden plunger, a hand lever and an upright faucet lever. It was a success. Bowser formed the S.F. Bowser Company and patented his pump in 1887.

The Bowser pump soon became known as a "filling station," and Bowser started selling an improved model to the first automobile-repair garages in 1893.

Most places that sold fuel to motorists used the "drum and measure" method. Gasoline was gravity-fed from a large steel drum into a five-gallon measuring can. The motorist then carried the can over to his automobile and poured the fuel into the car's tank through a funnel that was lined with a chamois filter to remove grit and impurities. A big bother all around, and not awfully safe, either.

Bowser came up with a big improvement in 1905: He enclosed a square, metal tank in a wooden cabinet equipped with a forced-suction pump. A hand-stroke lever pumped the gas. This pump featured air vents for safety, stops that you could set to deliver a predetermined quantity and -- wonder of wonders -- a hose to dispense the gasoline directly into the vehicle's fuel tank. He called it the Bowser Self-Measuring Gasoline Storage Pump. (Rival John J. Tokheim of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, had fitted a pump with a direct-delivery hose in 1903.)

The word bowser soon became a generic term for a vertical gasoline pump. That usage has dropped away in the United States, but lingers in Australia, New Zealand and, to a lesser extent, Canada. A bowser is also a tank truck that delivers fuel to airplanes on the tarmac, and in Britain the term applies as well to self-propelled tanks carrying any fluid that is delivered directly to the end user -- for instance, water after a disaster.

Bowser's later career was quirky and litigious. He invented and personally marketed a backscratcher and a sit-down enema. He also sold postcards of himself next to the "Stone of Scone," part of the coronation throne on which British monarchs sit while being crowned in Westminster Abbey.

Source: Petroleum Collectibles Monthly, others

• Translate into: cs pl ru de ja nl es ar pt fr el it ko tr no fi hu sv ro hi bg et lt lt sk tl iw hr id ca lv sl sr uk vi
• Link: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/383850894/dayintech_0905
• Complete RSS
• <<< Back

Sept. 5, 1885: Pay at the Pump - témata

1885:, Pay, Pump, Sept., 1885: Pay, Sylvanus, Bowser, Some, You, (or, Wasteful, Messy, Dangerous To, Fort, Wayne, Indiana, Jake, Gumper, 123, Company, 1887 The, "filling, 1893, Most, "drum, Gasoline, The, 1905:, This, Self-Measuring, Storage, (Rival, John, Tokheim, Cedar, Rapids, Iowa, 1903) The, That, United, States, Australia, New, Zealand, Canada, Britain, Bowser's, "Stone, Scone", British, Westminster, Abbey Source:, Petroleum, Collectibles, Monthly, 1885: Sylvanus, Wasteful. Messy. Dangerous. To, Fort Wayne, Indiana,, Fort Wayne, Jake Gumper 123, S.F. Bowser Company, 1887. The Bowser, 1893. Most, Bowser Self-Measuring Gasoline Storage Pump. (Rival John, Cedar Rapids, Iowa,, 1903.) The, United States,, Australia, New Zealand, Canada., Scone,", Westminster Abbey. Source: Petroleum Collectibles Monthly,, Sept. 5, 1885: Pay at the Pump,