Natural Gas – 100 Years Ago Today, September 23, 1922!
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.
I thought it might be fun and illuminating to look back 100 years ago at what was happening with natural gas. It is eye opening, given all we’ve learned over the last century. There is, indeed, little new under the sun, as our stories repeatedly demonstrate. Read our 100-year old news items on the subjects of barbecues, Little Rock, Depew and streams with gas bubbles.
Crazy California Helps Lead the Way in 1922
It’s hard to imagine today, when Gavin Newsom is busy leading California backwards in every possible, opposing fracking, ending gasoline-powered transportation and stifling the use of gas appliances, but a century ago citizens were celebrating the future of Fresno with a barbecue, beans and the biggest darned derrick you ever saw:
23 Sep 1922, Sat The Fresno Morning Republican (Fresno, California) Newspapers.com
Arkansas was a bit ahead of California, though.
Little Rock Gas & Fuel Co. Seeks Customers
As the advertisement illustrates, natural gas development was already well along in the East and the South:
23 Sep 1922, Sat Arkansas Democrat (Little Rock, Arkansas) Newspapers.com
The novelty of gas, though, made it a subject of humor.
“The Depew Natural Gas Company, Limited”
Only in New York!
23 Sep 1922, Sat The Daily Record (Long Branch, New Jersey) Newspapers.com
And, there really is a Depew, New York and there are still gas companies there, too!
Meanwhile, Gas Bubbles Up in Tennessee Streams Long Before Fracking
Yes, natural gas was often found in streams and water wells long before hydraulic fracturing was ever even a dream:
23 Sep 1922, Sat Knoxville Sentinel (Knoxville, Tennessee) Newspapers.com
Who would have thought it? Well, most of us who’ve lived in the country, of course.
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