DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker on this street tells it — and it's a bigger story than this stretch of pavement might let on. It starts right here. Right on this very street in Navarro County.
The year is 1902, and for the first time in Texas, natural gas is flowing through transmission lines to local homes and businesses. Public use of natural gas — first time, right here. You'd never guess, standing on this corner today, that you're standing at the headwaters of something enormous.
Because enormous is exactly what it became. Navarro County wasn't done makin' history, either. In 1905, out at Chatfield — twelve miles northeast of here — somebody had the notion to put a meter on a gas line.
First use of meters in the state. Then in 1906, over in the Corsicana oil field, engineers figured out you could use natural gas to pump oil wells. First time that was ever done.
Three firsts, one county, a handful of years. Not bad for a place most folks just drive through. The developers working those Navarro fields didn't stay put long.
They pushed north into Clay County, and by 1907 they were supplying natural gas all the way to Henrietta and Wichita Falls. Then came the big cities — Fort Worth and Dallas, furnished service between 1909 and 1910. The lines kept reachin'.
By 1918, new fields were supplying Laredo, San Antonio, and Waco. A web of pipe spreading across Texas like cracks in a dry lakebed, only headed the other direction — carrying something precious outward, not losing it. And then 1918 brought a discovery that changed the scale of the whole conversation.
The Amarillo field opened up, and it didn't take long before people recognized it as the world's foremost natural gas field. Think about that for a second — the world's foremost. And from that field, during the 1920s, came the first interstate natural gas pipelines.
The idea that you could send Texas gas across state lines, into other economies, other kitchens, other furnaces — it started with that Amarillo field. By the time this marker was put together, the numbers had grown almost past imagining. Texas spanned by over 83,000 miles of gas pipelines.
Twenty-seven pipeline companies exporting gas out of the state. Annual production running at nearly eight trillion cubic feet. Individual wells delivering more than 20 million cubic feet per day.
And Texas sitting on 42.3 percent of all proven natural gas reserves in the United States. Three-fourths of the United States and Mexico — that's how far Texas gas reaches now, carried by lines that trace their ancestry back to this street, these transmission lines, that first public use in 1902. All of it — every pipeline, every meter, every wellhead delivering millions of cubic feet a day — you could argue it grew from this corner of Navarro County, where somebody turned on the gas for the very first time and lit up a Texas home.
Some streets are just streets. And then there's this one.
What the marker says
First public use of natural gas began in Texas in 1902, from transmission lines on this street, serving local homes and businesses. These early lines were forerunners of mains that now transport Texas gas to three-fourths of the United States and Mexico. Other natural gas industry pioneer achievements in Navarro County were the first use of meters, in 1905 at Chatfield (12 mi. NE), and first use of gas in pumping oil wells in the Corsicana field, 1906. Developers of Navarro fields expanded to Clay County, and in 1907 were supplying natural gas to Henrietta and Wichita Falls; Fort Worth and Dallas were furnished service in 1909-1910. By 1918 new fields supplied Laredo, San Antonio, Waco. Today Texas is spanned by over 83,000 miles of gas pipelines. A 1918 discovery opened the Amarillo field, soon recognized as the world's foremost gas field -- and point of beginning, during the 1920s, of the first interstate natural gas pipelines. Texas now has 27 pipeline companies exporting gas. Annual production rate is nearly eight trillion cubic feet. A number of wells deliver more than 20 million cubic feet per day. Texas has 42.3 per cent of proven United States natural gas reserves. Incise in base: Early Travel, Communication and Transportation Series, erected by The Moody Foundation