Natural Gas – 100 Years Ago Today, August 5, 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 and, of course, there is little new under the sun. Consider these 100-year old news items (emphasis added):
- Big Natural Gas Strike in Clinton County, Pennsylvania!
- And, Moving North, New York Was Striking It Big, Too!
- But, These Folks Hoped to Strike It Big Drilling in Jumbo!
- When Natural Gas Was Recognized As A Natural Resource
Big Natural Gas Strike in Clinton County, Pennsylvania!
Natural gas strikes are nothing new to Pennsylvania as this Lock Haven news item from a century ago illustrates:
05 Aug 1922, Sat Reading Times (Reading, Pennsylvania) Newspapers.com
Whatever happened to the Clinton Natural Gas and Oil Company? Anyone know? Well, they’re still developing natural gas in Clinton County thanks to fracking, so it lives on in sprit if not as part of a business entity.
And, Moving North, New York Was Striking It Big, Too!
Roughly 100 miles northwest of Clinton County, another big natural gas well strike in Dunkirk was expected to help heat Buffalo, New York, a place that surely needed it then and now.
05 Aug 1922, Sat Buffalo Evening News (Buffalo, New York) Newspapers.com
This, of course, was back when the great Al Smith, a Democrat completely unlike any Democrat today, was Governor of New York and he wasn’t prohibiting the economic development of Western New York.
But, These Folks Hoped to Strike It Big Drilling in Jumbo!
Yes, there is a Jumbo and it’s located in British Columbia, Canada. It was named after an elephant and there is a nearby glacier and mountain of the same name. There was mining there in the 19th century but whether Empire Oil and Natural Gas Comany ever struck natural gas is unclear.
05 Aug 1922, Sat Vancouver Daily World (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) Newspapers.com
Even if there wasn’t natural gas in Jumbo, what a great name for attracting investors to an outfit called Empire!
Back When Natural Gas Was Still Recognized As A Natural Resource
This final clip helps to explain why natural gas was so enthusiastically received and explored in 1922; because it was recognized as a natural resource, a blessing from God that was to be used wisely. We call that conservation.
05 Aug 1922, Sat Asbury Park Press (Asbury Park, New Jersey) Newspapers.com
Natural gas is still a natural resource today but you wouldn’t know it from some of its opponents who prefer to rely on man-made solar panels and wind turbines.
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