Monroe Seiberling and the House the Gas Boom Built

[1]In 1886, Kokomo, Indiana, was a small farming town of about 4,000 people. It sat on top of a huge layer of underground rock. But most folks didn't think much about what lay beneath their feet. Then natural gas discoveries in these rocks excited the whole region. Natural gas could run factories, heat homes, and light streets. In Kokomo, a local businessman passed around a paper, asking his neighbors to chip in money to drill a well of their own.

[2]Kokomo's businessmen raised at least $1,400 and hired a drilling company to drill near Wildcat Creek, on the south side of town. In late 1886, the drill hit rock and gas came rushing up. The Kokomo Gazette celebrated the news. The head of the drilling company said the supply would last forever. Four more wells were drilled in 1887. Town leaders felt they had something special on their hands.

[3]Kokomo became an appealing place to many business owners after this discovery of natural gas. Factory owners needed cheap fuel, and many wanted to move there. A businessman named Monroe Seiberling saw a big chance in Howard County. He got together with people from other places who put in money. They planned to build a glass factory. A lot of businesses in Chicago needed lots of plate glass for the windows of their tall buildings. Kokomo had a railroad that connected to Lake Michigan, where glassmakers got their sand, and to Chicago, where they could sell the glass. Kokomo was also offering free natural gas, free land, and plenty of water for the factory. With all these advantages, Seiberling and his partners decided to build big.

[4]After seeing what Seiberling was doing, a group of local businessmen in Kokomo saw the opportunity that natural gas could bring to Kokomo. These businessmen worked hard to bring in new factories. They told everyone that Kokomo was the best place in Indiana to build a factory.

[5]By the summer of 1889, Seiberling's business, The Diamond Plate Glass Company, started making glass. It was said to be the largest plate glass factory in the country. The factory hired up to 1,800 workers. They worked sixty-hour weeks in hot and dangerous conditions. In December, workers made the largest sheet of plate glass anyone had ever seen.

[6]The Diamond Plate Glass Company was just the beginning. Between 1886 and 1890, more and more factories were built along the railroad tracks in Kokomo. Some factories turned straw or wood from nearby farms into paper. New neighborhoods and shops grew up near the factories. In just four years, the number of people living in Kokomo jumped from about 4,000 to more than 8,000.

[7]Kokomo was not alone. Across east-central Indiana, natural gas had been found underground. Towns in this area, called the gas belt, wanted factories to come. Like Kokomo, they offered free gas and free land to get them. As a result, by 1890, Indiana had 21 glass plants and was second in the whole country for making glass. Land that had been mostly farms and small villages was now full of factories and workers.