Natural Gas – 100 Years Ago Today, March 24, 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.
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. Natural Gas – 100 Years Ago Today, March 24, 1923. Read our 100-year old news items on the subjects of natural gas bonfires, Texas output, violent boiling, Metro Billings and “The Best and the Cheapest.”
Natural Gas Bonfires?
Well, this was apparently another new use for natural gas, although not one appreciated.
24 Mar 1923, Sat Herald and Review (Decatur, Illinois) Newspapers.com
The more you explore the history of natural gas, the more surprises there are!
Well, That Was Good, But…
That’s quite the number; it amounted to 496.4 billion cubic feet annually.
24 Mar 1923, Sat The Record-Argus (Greenville, Pennsylvania) Newspapers.com
The shale revolution, though, has resulting in Texas producing 999 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 20222 with Pennsylvania yielding another.7.6 trillion cubic feet. That’s progress by any description.
Just Say No to Violent Boiling!
I’d say this has a distinct lecturing tone, wouldn’t you?
24 Mar 1923, Sat The Record-Argus (Greenville, Pennsylvania) Newspapers.com
Avoiding the waste of precious natural gas was obviously an obsession bak in the day.
Yes, Billings Is A Metropolis
It would be easy to dismiss Billings as just a small city (117,166 people in 2020) but it is officially a metropitan area according to the Census Bureau with a regional population of 184,167 and there is no doubt natural gas has played a role in its growth. It is, in fact, described as “an energy center” yet today.
24 Mar 1923, Sat The Billings Gazette (Billings, Montana) Newspapers.com
And, if you don’t think the Census Bureau is an authority, I direct your attention to the remarks of the Judge in “The Miracle on 34th Street” regarding the Post Office.
The Best and the Cheapest!
Don’t you love the advertising from a century ago?
24 Mar 1923, Sat Lansing State Journal (Lansing, Michigan) Newspapers.com
Get one now!
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