Bell was originally known as Worth Well Surveys, Inc. (WWS), established around 1951.  Worth Well Surveys was acquired by Reddig and Associates in the early 1970's.  Worth Well then went into the manufacturing business (it had produced some tools for internal use previously).  The line of logging tools and the first 900 series logging truck were shown at the 1976 Offshore Technology Conference.  Horis Kading was president of Worth Well at that time, and Dale Wilson was station manager in Odessa, with additional shops located in Hobbs, New Mexico, and Sonora, Texas.  Loyd Reddig sold his interests in 1977, and the Bell name first appeared about that time.  Bell Petroleum Systems (BPS), a division of Bell Petroleum Services, was established as the equipment manufacturing arm of Bell.  Bell even established a station in the Illinois Basin, later acquired by Eastern Services.  B.F. Stout was responsible for many of the Bell tool designs; he eventually went to Pengo, explaining why many of the Pengo designs were virtually carbon copies of Bell tools.  Prior to the arrival of B.F. Stout, Chet Green was responsible for many of the tools made by Worth Well including the old temperature tools.  Chet Green also built the "Batmobile" in the early 1960's, a logging truck complete with stylized wings in the then WWS company colors of yellow and baby blue.  After a bankruptcy forced by the 1986 oil price collapse, Bell was acquired by an oilfield elastomer company wanting only the Bell rubber products subsidiary.  But what they got was a million dollar lawsuit with US EPA over an old chrome plating plant Bell had once owned near Odessa, Texas.  The Bell wireline business was later sold to Warrior Wireline of Alabama (no relation to the computer folks).  Warrior kept the logging station in West Texas, but soon dumped the Fort Worth manufacturing operation at a scrap yard price.  As mentioned above, AnaLog Services, Inc. eventually acquired the remaining BPS assets in December, 2001.  Thanks to Loyd Reddig, Jr. of TCP for help with the history of Worth Well.

Also see A Brief Opinionated History of Logging Equipment Manufacturers for more industry history.