A steady demand for manufactured gas led to expanded street and commercial lighting in America's major eastern cities in the quarter century leading to our Centennial. By 1850 towns along and bordering the west bank of the Mississippi River. The clamor for Centennial improvements led to installation of gas works at most towns of 10,000 or more residents. Coincidentally, gas producers were developed to provide manufactured gas to power gas engines and to supply fuel for industrial uses. Concurrently, the world chemical industry was established on the basis of coal tar when Perkin discovered the first coal-tar dyes in 1854 but his instructor Hoffmann returned to Germany with the basic knowledge.
Litigation appears in America over nuisances and damages from open discharge of gas house wastes.
Fuel gas was seen by the gas industry as a means of combating the inroads made by electricity on gas lighting. The century closed with passage of the Federal Refuse Act of 1899, empowering the Army Corps of Engineers to defend the nation's waterways from discharge of industrial wastes. Metallurgical engineers developed seamless pipe welding techniques that promoted the use of the necessary transmission pipes for manufactured gas. Coke was at a premium as the smokeless fuel and the motor vehicle began to consume the coal-gas light oils as its fuel. Litigation over damages from leaks, spills and discharges of gashouse wastes expanded and States begin to public stream anti-pollution laws, some of which specifically name gashouse waste discharge as particular causes of environmental damage and health issues.