S. F. Bowser & Company (later Bowser, Inc.)

1885 – 1961/62

Founded: 1885, Fort Wayne — Indiana Landmarks and the History Center both give 1885 for S. F. Bowser's company, formed to sell his self-measuring pump. No articles of incorporation or first city-directory listing was retrieved, so the year rests on the accounts cited. Sequence conflict flagged: the American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) sequence runs first sale (5 Sept 1885) → popular success → Bowser formed the company and patented the invention in late October 1887; the patent application was in fact filed 21 June 1886 (see below), so company activity predates the 1887 grant in any case.

Founder: Sylvanus Freelove Bowser (8 August 1854 – 3 October 1938) — A variant "Sylvester F. Bowser" is contradicted by the patent and every institutional source. Augustus Bowser is co-inventor on the 1887 patent only; he is not shown to be a company co-founder on this evidence.

What it did: Manufactured self-measuring storage, pumping and dispensing equipment for kerosene, gasoline, oils and other volatile liquids — later also oil-purification / water-fuel separators. The first device was a kerosene pump: a square metal tank with a wooden cabinet and a hand-lever suction pump. Any account calling the 1885 sale a gasoline-pump sale is misidentified on the fuel — automobiles were not yet the market.

Course: First sale 5 September 1885 to Fort Wayne grocer Jake Gumper — (AOGHS). U.S. Patent No. 372,250, "Storage and Measuring Tank for Volatile Liquids," filed 21 June 1886, granted 25 October 1887 — (the patent itself). Operations on Creighton Avenue began 1887–1888 — (History Center); headquarters at 1302 East Creighton Avenue, at Bowser Avenue. The gasoline version followed in 1905: the "Self-Measuring Gasoline Storage Pump," with a hose for dispensing directly into a car's tank — (Indiana Landmarks; AOGHS). A Bowser employee is credited with calling the apparatus a "filling station" (Indiana Landmarks); AOGHS says the pumps themselves became known as filling stations — the exact coiner and date are , the Bowser origin is . By the mid-1910s Bowser was the established leader in quality fuel pumps domestically and abroad (Indiana Landmarks), and with Wayne Pump and Tokheim, Fort Wayne became the gas-pump manufacturing capital of the world (AOGHS). A massive six-storey, 60,000 sq ft corporate office was completed on Creighton in 1917. The company's millionth pump was dedicated in June 1923, placed on a concrete foundation by the office and kept as a memorial — (contemporary Journal Gazette and News and Sentinel coverage, June 1923, via ACGSI). A History Center figure of $13 million in sales "by the 1920s" is carried without a year or annual report behind it. Bowser died 3 October 1938; the company stayed on Creighton Avenue for many more years.

Fate: Closed as a Fort Wayne operation, headquarters and manufacture removed, exact closure year unresolved. Headquarters moved to Chicago in the mid-1950s (History Center, single chain — no exact year in hand). CONFLICT — plant closure: the History Center gives 1962, with the plant moved to Tennessee (spelled "Greenville" in that text; the Tennessee town is Greeneville — spelling flagged); a City of Fort Wayne account gives 1961 for the manufacturing plant south of headquarters. No primary closure record was retrieved, so the entry carries 1961/1962, not one year. The company was acquired by the Keene Corporation in 1969 — (History Center; FuelPumpU); a current Wikipedia text giving 1960 is an outlier and is not followed. The Creighton complex was acquired in 1965 by Dale W. McMillen Sr. and leased to Phelps Dodge for 30 years; most of the manufacturing plant burned in the late 1990s, the Fort Wayne Police occupied the main office until 2012, and demolition of the remaining corporate office began in March 2017 (Indiana Landmarks). An AOGHS line that the company was "demolished in 2012" conflates the police departure with demolition and is .

The History Center holds the S. F. Bowser & Co. collection, including its glass negatives (History Center collections).

Sources:

1. U.S. Patent US372250A (filed 21 June 1886; granted 25 Oct 1887) — https://patents.google.com/patent/US372250A/en
2. Indiana Landmarks, "Bowser, Man and Building," 18 May 2017 — https://www.indianalandmarks.org/2017/05/bowser-building/
3. American Oil & Gas Historical Society, "First Gas Pump and Service Station" — https://aoghs.org/transportation/first-gas-pump-and-service-stations/
4. ACGSI / Allen INGenWeb, "S. F. Bowser & Company, Fort Wayne" (History Center post 14 Apr 2025; 1923 newspaper citations) — https://www.acgsi.org/genweb/fort-wayne/bowser-fort-wayne-indiana.html
5. City contractor / Bowser buildings account (1961 closure; 1997 fire) — https://fort-wayne-news.com/2017/03/16/city-contractor-to-place-barriers-around-bowser-buildings-today/