The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-01-14
IN JAY COUNTY.
Gas Failing at Portiand-A Forty Years
Supply In the Dunkirk Field.

N~
Supply In the Dunkirk Field.
PORTLAND, Jan. 11.-[Special. 1.-The
natural gas supply of this city is failing
perceptibly. There is no gas worth the
trouble and expense OF drilling for, within
eight or nine miles of this city. Two
natural gas companies supply the city
with gas, the consumption being almost
exclusively for domestic purposes, two
grist mills and one small machine shop
being the only concerns it is supplied to
other than dwelling houses. stores and Of
fees. The two companies have formed a
trust and have agreed that the price shall
be kept up to the highest notch, and also
that neither company shall supply gas to
customers of the other company who have
become dissatisfied with their service.
The Citizens gas company pipes its gas
from the edge of the Redkey fields, a
distance of about nine and a half miles.
The gas of this company does not afford
nearly so bright a light as it once did.
The Portland gas company pipes its gas
from Camden, q distance of twelve mics.
1t is very evident that the Cam
den and Redkey gas fields are
failing both in quantity and quality. The
supply of the Dunkirk gas fields is still as
strong as ever, 1t being more nearly the
center of the belt. Redkey and Camden
are near the edge OF the field or belt, as
has been demonstrated by drilling.
The Citizens gas company of this place
owns a well about hall a mile north of
the city, which had an output of about
three million cubic feet when first drilled,
but it has failed until, with two ether
wells near by. it did not furnish sufficient
gas to run a tve-pot glass factory, nor
even enough TO make a melt, so that the
glass factory had to shut down.
Indications are stronghold Dunkirk will
be the city of the county in two or three
years. 1t o has a population Of 1900,
nearly half as many as Portland. 1t has
but one RAILROAD, but the ~initiatory
steps have been taken to build
a road from there to Camden, a distance
of about nine miles. This road will more
than quadruple the population of Dun
kirk, because of the fact that Dunkirk has
as much. If not more, gas than any other
city in the state, and Camden has an
abundance of fine glass-sand. Real es-
tate Ill Dunkirk is bringing good prices,
and is changing hands rapidly.
When "old Bill Sutton" of Dunkirk gave
up the ONCE OF county auulJOr, ana moved
back to his farm near Dunkirk, then, in
1869, a place of about fifty inhabitants,
he replied 10 a haunting remark about his
going back to Dunkirk, that he would
have the county seat at Dunkirk yet be-
fore he died, and it now begins to look a
little as if his prophecy would come true,
as William is still in the land of the liv-
ing, plating lots by the eighty acres, and
giving them away to manufacturing insti-
t%utions, and,t the people who will build
on them.
Mr.. G. p. Cole, the proprietor Of the
Dunkirk window glass company, who
came from the gas fields of Pennsylvania,
and is thoroughly acquainted with the his
tory of natural gas, said to your CORES.
pondent that he firmly believed that the
natural gas supply in the Dunkirk field or
belt would not be exhausted in forty
years, and that it would be as strong in
twenty years as it is now
Joseph Zehnor, the superintendent OF
the Dunkirk gas company, SAYS that after
the most careful test it is evident that the
gas supply there is as strong now as when
the first we'll was drilled