Natural Gas – 100 Years Ago Today, October 7, 1922!
Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.
….
….
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 movie time in 1922, energy efficiency and “juice” production.
Movie Time: “The Story of Natural Gas”
The U.S. Bureau of Mines was in the movie business in 1922:
07 Oct 1922, Sat The Cincinnati Enquirer (Cincinnati, Ohio) Newspapers.com
I couldn’t find “The Story of Natural Gas” film but I did find “The Story of Petroleum” put by the Bureau of Mines the following year. The following image is from the movie and the whole thing (25 minutes in length) can be viewed by clicking it.
Scene from U.S. Bureau of Mines film titled “The Story of Petroleum”
Pretty interesting stuff, especially the panoramic views of the derricks!
Supply Pessimism or Energy Efficiency?
It’s amazing at times how worried folks were a century ago that the natural gas miracle would evaporate:
07 Oct 1922, Sat Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) Newspapers.com
Or, was this the beginning of a movement for energy efficiency? If so, it was not so much pessimism as prudence, wasn’t it?
Meanwhile Natural Gas Was Acknowledged As Bringing Light Out of Darkness
Reporting on the search to learn who first turned the electric on in Wichita, the writer points out it was natural gas that brought the city out of darkness.
07 Oct 1922, Sat Independence Daily Reporter (Independence, Kansas) Newspapers.com
A century later it’s worth noting what’s really behind all that juice production and, of course, it’s primarily natural gas. So, in other words, natural gas is still bringing light to the world.
The post Natural Gas – 100 Years Ago Today, October 7, 1922! appeared first on Natural Gas Now. This post appeared first on Natural Gas Now.