The Iola register., 1902-06-06
WOULD PIPE GAS AWAY
Kansas City Man Plans to Rob Gas
Belt for That Town.

Tuesday appeared the following inter.
esting interview:
alderman John Rood last night
introduced in the upper house of the
common council an ordinance asking
a franchise to pipe the streets for gas.
The man behind the application is
Joseph j. Helm. If what Mr.. Helm
states is correct, then no ordinance
more important has been introduced
1nthe common council since the incor-
poration of the municipality. 1t is
prom ised to affect every home in Che
city, and every boiler room. Light
ing gas is to be sold at maximum
\ charge of so cents per 900 feet, half
the present rate, and 1000 feet of it is
20 have the Illuminating power of 5000
feet of manufactured gas. Heating
gas is to be sold at the same rate. Two
thousand feetof natural gas is declar-
ed to be the equivalent of one ton of
high grade soft coal. At this
rate the cost of the equivalent of
coal is to be reduced to 81 per ton for
heating purposes.
Important as this is to theientire
city, scarcely if at all less is the an
nouncement made by Mr.. Helm that
engine room fuel charges will be re.
duced from $l.25 per ton for slack
coal to 80 cents for the same amount
of steam-making gas.
"At this juncture in Mr.. Helm state
ment he was asked what volume of gas
his company could supply.
50 A single well we own, was the
reply, turns out as much as the Kan
sas City gas plant. We have more
than 100 wells. We can supply Kan
sas City for the next century if its
population runs up to 100000 and
keeps at that point. We will not ask
more than 80 cents per 1000 feet and
may not ask SO much of large con-
sumers.'
I'm answer to question, Mr.. Helm
said the day the franchise was granted
men would start the work of laying
the pipes into Kansas City, and stimuli
taneously others would undertake the
work OF threading the streets to reach
Ehe consumers.
'goplin is to be Immediately affect
ded by the operations of the Natural
Gas Supply Company. The smelters
there are to be fed from the Helm gas
wells. At present vast quantities of
ores are carried from Joplin north to
Abe treated at gas-heated smelters near
Nola, and afterward reloaded and sent
TO the seaboard. The proposition now
is to save the expensive outlay of con-
veying the ore north by substituting
the less expensive transfer of :he gas
10 Joplin.
Speaking generally of the plans of
the company, Mr.. Helm said:
-" 1T means everything for Kansas
SeIty. In the first place it cuts the
u'oor mans coal bill in two, which is
Aomething he will realize in an instant
IT will make the population double in
tive years because it will force manu-
facturers to rush here. No one can
afford to manufacture in St. Louis
using Sl.50 slack coal when their COM
petitors here are using 50-cent coal,
which is what our gas rates will mean
1T will light the city for half the
money il is now paying, and will make
IL one of the cleanest cities in the
world. The day will come, and short
ly, when there will not be cloud go
up through the smoke stacks as big as
a mans hand
"Mr. Helm added the assertion that
the gas belt tributary to Kansas CITY
as the greatest gas belt in the world.
There is a gas we'll at the Kansas City
Nut and Bolt works, on the Blue. Ac.
cording to the management of that
comp any, one set of engines is being
run by heat obtained from a gas
well sunk on the premises. Accord
TO one of the tiremen, the entire plant,
from the lights to the biggest boilers,
as run by natural gas. At the time the
company bored for gas it was reported
che experiment was failure.
civilian T. Stark, who owns
1arge tract of land Immediately across
the Blue from the nut and bolt works,
is known to have found gas on his
premises, though he refuses to give
out any statement regarding the drill
5ng. Now that the Helm syndicate is
preparing to invade the city, the gas
wells on the Blue may be exploited.
1.-The Rood ordinance was referred
co the gas committee"
The scheme is an old one, and is re-
viVed because Mr. Helm saw the Noble
~ell at Gas City opened. 1t set him
crazy. He bought property in that
.Own and began dreaming dreams.