October 2015 A Bradford Visit By Paul Harvey
Our story begins in
May of this year, with an e-mail from Zippo Manufacturing Company in
As we were preparing to depart,
the maintenance supervisor suggested that we visit their museum, which
features the history of both Zippo lighters and Case knives.
We accepted the interesting-sounding invitation.
Driving around the corner from the factory, we found the entrance
into the
We have long known
that Zippo evolved from the Blaisdell family, who, at one time, made
large gas engines, compressors, and other oil field equipment.
The 65 horsepower engine-compressor located in Coolspring's
George, his portrait
shown in
Photo 4,
had seen a French cigarette
lighter, the only one on the market, and it operated poorly.
He decided to make a better one. There was no competition.
He rented a small room over a tire shop in
Photo 5
is an interior view of the
Leaving Bradford, we
soon found the We were greeted by a docent who gave us an extensively detailed and guided tour. We started in the oil field display building, illustrated in Photo 10. After chatting with us a while, he proceeded to start their A.C. Thomas "half breed" engine, Photo 11, and its exhaust note provided nice "stack music" for the rest of the tour. A detail of the name of this engine cast into the cylinder - fascinating to me - is seen in Photo 12. It is interesting how irregular these letters appear. The other side of the oil field display building is shown in Photo 13. This features a very complete Farrar & Trefts steam engine powering a walking beam oil pumping rig. There are countless interesting artifacts displayed on the walls and floor of this building.
Among the outside
displays is this unique 12 horsepower "half breed" engine.
See
Photo 14. The frame is a
beautiful Dempster and Comstock semi-box frame, built in
Returning to the
buildings, we learned about this crude oil test lab used to determine
the exact composition of oil samples.
The vertical cylinder to the right, viewed in
Photo
15, is a miniature
cracking still which separates the crude oil into its components for
further analysis. Another display
case featured this vintage advertisement for a "turnkey" power house
built by Bovaird & Seyfang company.
These structures contain a two-cycle Bovaird & Seyfang engine
direct coupled, through a clutch, to
their own pumping power. This
unit was able to pump many wells by means of the rod line system.
The ad denotes, as seen in
Photo 16, that this unit
was used by
Their excellent
library and reading room is shown in
Photo 17.
The shelves are loaded with vintage books and periodicals
about the great Bradford Oil Field.
An antique transit telescope stands inside one of the windows and is
aimed at a remaining pumping power.
It provides an inspiring place to do research.
As the day came to a close, we finally visited the derrick viewed
in Photo 18.
The rig is powered by a four-cylinder |
Photo 1: The Zippo/Case Museum in Bradford |
Photo 2: The Big Zippo |
Photo 3: Article from the 30th anniversary of Zippo |
Photo 4: Photo of George Grant Blaisdell |
Photo 5: Zippo museum display |
Photo 6: The Zippo Clinic |
Photo 7: Zippo ad from the 1940s |
Photo 8: Case knife display |
Photo 9: Penn Brad Oil Museum |
Photo 10: Interior of the Penn Brad Oil Museum |
Photo 11: Docent starting the A.C. Thomas engine |
Photo 12: Details of the A.C. Thomas cylinder |
Photo 13: Farrar & Trefts steam engine powering a walking beam oil pumping rig |
Photo 14: Dempster & Comstock engine |
Photo 15: Early crude oil test lab |
Photo 16: Turnkey power house by Bovaird & Seyfang |
Photo 17: Library and reading room |
Photo 18: Standard rig |
Photo 19: The Ingersoll-Rand compressor at CPM |
Copyright © by Coolspring Power Museum |