Explosion at the Gas Well
A routine water-drilling operation in Whatcom turns into a hazardous discovery when a match ignites a pocket of natural gas.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Natural gas was discovered Saturday afternoon, six miles east of Whatcom, on the northeast diagonal road. John McCush was superintending the driving of a well to augment the water supply of a shingle mill; the drill had reached seventy-two feet when a bubbling hindered the work. While John McCush and H. T. Jones were bending over the opening, another man lighted his pipe and threw the match into the well. Instantly there was an explosion and a sheet of flame burst from the mouth of the well. Jones was knocked insensible, and McCush was severely burned. The flames shot twenty feet into the air, requiring two hours to cap. Attention is now turning to whether natural gas exists in the vicinity in paying quantities.
“Instantly there was an explosion and a sheet of flame burst from the mouth of the well.”
This early industrial accident highlights the raw, experimental nature of resource extraction in Washington's past—a predecessor to the modern energy debates over fracking and pipelines.
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