Natural Gas – 100 Years Ago Today, September 22, 1923

Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

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Natural gas news from a hundred years ago offers great perspective for discussing one of the cleanest sources of energy available then and still today.

It’s fun and illuminating to look back 100 years ago at what was happening with natural gas. It’s also eye opening, given all we’ve learned over the last century. There is, indeed, little new under the sun, as our stories repeatedly demonstrate.

There is, indeed, little new under the sun, as our stories repeatedly demonstrate. Natural Gas – 100 Years Ago Today, September 22, 1923. Read our 100-year old news items on the cost of success, two or three fireplaces for the cost of one and the expected success of dirigibles over planes.

Natural Gas and the Cost of Success!

Lots of common sense in this advertisement from a century ago:

22 Sep 1923, Sat Calgary Herald (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) Newspapers.com

Notice how the ad informs as well as promotes. Today, we too often get only propaganda, written by PR professionals with the scrutiny of lawyers to ensure nothing much is said beyond “we are wonderful.” There is a lot to learn from the past about being candid and even blunt. Sadly, much of this has been lost. There is too much pandering and that is as true of the natural gas industry as others.

Attention Home Builders!

The Radiantfire ads were everywhere one hundred tears ago but this one was aimed at selling home builders on natural gas:

22 Sep 1923, Sat The Record-Argus (Greenville, Pennsylvania) Newspapers.com

“Two or three fireplaces for the price of one.” Who wouldn’t want that deal? The Radiantfire was another victory for natural gas. Go here for a photo of the real thing!

The Airplane Has No Future Compared to Dirigible!

The Hindenburg disaster took place in New Jersey on May 6, 1937, but one could say from this article that it was anticipated 14 years earlier. Read all about it!

22 Sep 1923, Sat Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia) Newspapers.com 22 Sep 1923, Sat Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia) Newspapers.com

Natural gas, as a source for helium, was viewed as the way to prevent explosions of airships, but Germany turned the dream into a nightmare by using hydrogen instead. Still, it seems unlikely dirigibles would have done well anyway, as the speculation about the inability of heaver than air machines to fly great distances turned out to be spectacularly wrong. Today, of course, we’re refusing to learn the lesson; that fossil fuels powering jet engines made all the difference.

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