Dresser Industries

Dresser Industries was a multinational corporation headquartered in Dallas, Texas, United States, which provided a wide range of technology, products, and services used for developing energy and natural resources. In 1998, Dresser merged with its main rival Halliburton, Halliburton sold many of former Dresser non "oil patch" divisions, retaining the M W Kellogg Engineering and Construction Company and the Dresser oil-patch products and services that complemented Halliburton's energy and natural resource businesses. In 2001 Halliburton sold five separate, but somewhat related former Dresser non "oil patch" divisions, to an investment banking firm. Those five operations later took the name "Dresser Inc." In October 2010, Dresser Inc., was acquired by General Electric. It is headquartered in Addison, Texas.

Solomon Dresser created a "packer", using rubber for a tight fit, and after taking out a patent on May 11, 1880, he began advertising and selling his product, the Dresser Cap Packer, from Bradford, 1880 Pennsylvania, in the heart of the oilfields. Dresser's packer was one of many available on the market, and it was another invention that saw a substantial expansion of the company. A flexible coupling, the Dresser Joint, that he built in 1885 to join pipes together in such a way that they would not leak natural gas. This coupling also used rubber for a tight fit, and it was so successful that it permitted for the first time the long-range transmission of natural gas from the gas fields where it was extracted to the cities which were the main gas consumers.

As the natural gas industry prospered and expanded after 1900, Dresser's company grew as pipelines were built over great distances. By 1927 the company's annual sales had reached US$3.7 million and was employing 400 workers.

Following Dresser's death, his descendants decided to sell it, and in 1928 the Wall Street investment-banking firm of W. A. Harriman and Company, Inc., converted the firm into a public company by issuing 300,000 shares of stock.