Heritage in the Hat: The Gas City
By MALCOLM SISSONS on May 23, 2023.
In 1883, the CPR, while drilling for water at Langevin siding west of Redcliff, inadvertantly encountered natural gas. In 1891, J. P. Mitchell and Albert Hughes, drilling to find a coal seam near the old hospital, were disappointed to strike gas instead. Until the early 1900s in Medicine Hat, coal was burned in stoves for heat and coal oil lamps were used for lighting. On October 26, 1899, Charles Colter drilled a well behind his lots on Main (Second) Street. He struck a “big flow of gas” at 750 feet and cased it in three-inch diameter pipe. He patented a gas furnace and piped gas into his own and several other neighbouring houses. Other citizens decided to drill wells, a headache for the city a hundred years later. On July 4, 1901, the News reported that a drilling outfit was working on a gas well for Purmal’s brick yard, perhaps the first industrial use of gas in Medicine Hat and the province, replacing large quantities of coal as fuel for the kilns. The town decided to operate its own gas utility and by November 1902 had four wells in operation with about 100 metered services. The price was initially set at 30 cents per thousand cubic feet but then reduced to 17 cents to compete with coal. It was promoted as cleaner than coal and without the domestic work involved. A blue flame was produced in stoves and furnaces with broken bricks piled on the burner to replicate the nice red glow of a coal fire. Gas lighting produced a nice bright light compared to the yellow light of a coal oil lamp. To distribute the gas to lights within a house, a network of small diameter pipes was installed and they can often still be found hidden in walls and attics of older homes. By 1904, gas street lighting was introduced and gradually extended to developed areas. In 1912, Council considered the request by grocer William J. McKenzie for street lighting on Dominion Street. An authentic Humphrey gas lamp (converted to LED) once again lights up Dominion Street in front of the McKenzie Sharland Grocery. The gas streetlights were replaced by electric ones in 1949. The use of gas for domestic lighting was short-lived in Medicine Hat. Although Thomas Edison refined the incandescent electric light bulb for practical use in 1879, it didn’t come into widespread use for several decades. In 1917, the city began a marketing campaign to sign up more residential customers for its electrical grid and to replace interior gas lighting. The local shallow gas field that once powered industry, heated homes and lit streets has become depleted and the city now buys the majority of the gas it supplies to citizens. Once the Gas City, we may soon become known for our wind and sun perhaps as “the city with wind!” Malcolm Sissons is a former member of the city’s Heritage Resources Committee 10-9
