ABSTRACT
Boston was the third major American city to receive illumination, one of the universal hallmarks of the Industrial Revolution, along with railroads and smokestacks. By the termination of gas manufacturing and distribution in Boston, some century-and-a-half later, Boston had seen a fair indulgence in gas lighting, gas cooking, gas heating, and industrial gas for industry. Although the Boston gas industry came from small beginnings, with a few dozen gas lights in one corner of what was then the better part of town, it rapidly developed into one of the largest and most technologically advanced metropolitan gas markets in the United States. Appendix C includes a table of salient events in the history of Boston's gas industry. By 1922, the annual gas production capacity of its sole producer, the Boston Consolidated Gas Co., was 6,370,000,000 cu ft., or about 2% of the entire annual “make” of the American manufactured gas industry. The quantities of gas-manufacturing residuals and wastes that can be justifiably calculated to have resulted from annual generation of this magnitude are undeniably staggering.
