This issue, I thought I would share a couple of nice I advertisements from a 1914 issue of Oil and Gas Journal sent to me by Nick Poncelet of Columbia Falls, Mont.
Both of these engines will be of interest to oil field engine enthusiasts, showing as they do a Franklin engine (probably a 40 HP) manufactured by Franklin Valveless Engine Co., Franklin, Pa., and a row of a huge, 200 HP Clark double-acting engines manufactured by Clark Bros. Co., Olean, N.Y.
Both Franklin and Clark Bros, manufactured engines for the oil field trade, but it seems very few Clark Bros, engines have survived. While Franklin engines are hardly commonplace, there are a number of surviving engines known. Franklin appears to have gone out of business in the late 1920s.
Available information suggests Dresser-Rand Co. (today a major manufacturer of turbines and industrial power units) bought Clark Bros, about 1920. Dresser-Rand still operates a manufacturing plant in Olean, N.Y.
If anyone knows more about the history of these two companies, we’d like to hear from you.
