THE JOURNAL, GAS CITY, JONESBORO
Friday, July 7, 1950
Visions of Gas City as an industrial metropolis of 25,000 population were recalled
recently when Mr. and Mrs. William Harrington brought to the Journal a copy of a booklet
issued by the Gas City Land Co. in 1893.
The booklet was discovered while remodeling their property at 704 E. S. "B"
St. It had been concealed behind a wall in the house, and was in a good state of
preservation. Also found with the booklet was a copy of the Cincinnati Times-Star dated
1899, and a copy of McCall's Magazine dated 1901.
The Gas Boom days of Gas City and vicinity date back about sixty years so that not too
many citizens remain who had personal experience of those hectic times when Gas City was
being created as an industrial city, with the basis of an apparently inexhaustible supply
of natural gas.
However, the natural gas gradually weakened in pressure, and finally disappeared
altogether, in a few years after the boom started.
Whoever wrote this booklet for the gas City Land company proved himself a prolific
writer, as well as an author of imagination and vision. He painted a glowing picture of
Gas City as it was to be. And it might be stated that, had the natural gas held out, it
would have equaled all promises.
The purpose of the booklet, frankly, was to interest investors in purchasing lots in
Gas City, and to inducing manufacturers to locate factories here.
The title page of the booklet bears the words: "Gas City, Indiana. Where it is
and why you should invest there."
It goes on to list the factories located at Gas City between May 1, and July 26, 1892,
as follows:
Tin Plate Works ( The E. Morewood Co.) with 2,000 employees
American Window Glass Plant 350
Thompson & Co. Green Glass plant, 125
Gas City Bottle Co. (Marion Flint Glass Works) 200
Almerian Glass Works ( Cathedral Glass) 100
Grant Iron and steel Works 200
Mills and Leach Planing Mills 260
United States Glass Co. ( table ware) 600
And between July 26, 1892 and February 1, 1893, the following:
Gas City straw Board Co., 150 employes
Chicago Edged Tool Co., 100
Sorry, the page with the rest of the article is gone.... To my knowlege there were
only two of these factories that survived after the Gas was gone. The Thompson Bottle
Co. that later became the Owen-Illinois, which closed it's doors in 1981, and the
United States Glass Co, commonly called the U.S. and later became the Knox Glass Factory
and later still Glass Containers before it finally shut it's doors.
Jackie