Gas Works

Winfield Courier, September 20, 1883.
Gas Works.
On Monday evening the council passed an ordinance granting to Wm. Whiting the right to lay gas pipes in the streets and alleys of the city. The Colonel intends to take immediate steps toward the erection of the works and in a short time we may expect the city to be lit throughout with gas.
Winfield Courier, October 18, 1883.
Gas Works.
On Monday evening the Council closed a contract with Col. Whiting to light the city with gas, agreeing to take light for sixty posts at an annual rental of thirty dollars each, with provisions for extending the mains as the growth of the city demands. This contract insures the speedy erection of the works and means another step in the public improvement of our city. The lighting of the streets, stores, and residences with gas will add much to the beauty of the city and the convenience of its citizens. The location of gas mains was fixed as follows: On Main street from 6th to 12th; on 8th east to Andrews; on 9th east to Andrews; on 10th east to Andrews; on 11th east to Andrews; 12th east to Loomis; on 8th west to Mansfield; on 9th west to Walton; on 10th west to Mansfield; on Manning from 10th south to 12th; on Mansfield from 9th south to 12th; on Menor from 10th south to 12th; on Stewart from 9th south to 11th. This plat takes in the thickly settled portions of the city and makes between three and four miles of mains. The location of the gas posts will give rows of lights both ways on the streets upon which the mains are laid, with two for each street crossing on Main street and near the churches.
Winfield Courier, March 6, 1884.
The Winfield Gas Works closed a contract with Mr. John Maxwell on Monday for putting in the Gas Works at once. Mr. Maxwell will be remembered as the gentleman who laid the water mains here last summer. Since then he has been engaged in the erection of gas works at El Paso, Texas. He will begin the work in about a week and push it through rapidly. He expects to have the completed works ready to turn over to the company in four months.
Winfield Courier, March 13, 1884. J. F. McMullen, attorney for the Gas Company, filed a written request for the appointment of a committee to locate the places for the erection of the gas ports. Councilmen McMullen, Wilson, and Kretsinger were appointed as such committee.
Ordinance No. 184, contracting for the supply of gas to the city of Winfield to light the streets and public buildings of said city was passed and approved by the mayor.
The Winfield Gas Company filed a statement locating its main buildings and appurtenances for the manipulation of gas on out lot No. 3 lying north of Fifth Avenue and west of Main Street within the corporate limits of the city. The location was accepted by the council.
Winfield Courier, March 20, 1884.
The location of the gas works buildings is opposite the elevator on north Main street, and the “holder” is now being excavated. It will be a circular hole fifty-one feet across and fourteen feet deep. The piping is arriving and will soon be put under the streets.
Winfield Courier, April 24, 1884.
The Gas Works at the North end of Main street are “looming up.” The walls will be completed in about ten days. About half of the five mile plant of Mains is now in. The company expects to have the works completed for a grand illumination on the Fourth of July night.
Winfield Courier, May 15, 1884.

The immense cistern for the holder at the Gas Works is about completed and the workmen will arrive from St. Louis next week to put up the iron work. About three and a half miles of mains are laid and the buildings are ready for the machinery and iron roofing.
Winfield Courier, July 3, 1884.
                                                             OUR GAS WORKS.
           Another Step in the Progress of Winfield Which Makes her a Modern City in Every Way.
                                                      THE WORKS COMPLETED.
From month to month and from year to year during the last twelve years, the COURIER has chronicled as faithfully as it could the growth and advancement of Winfield. Beginning with the erection of the first brick building in a column and a half article under a screaming eagle and a booming cannon, it has come down through the successive steps of the first railroad, the second railroad, then the water works, coupled with so many enterprises on evey hand that it has grown to accept these steps in the city’s advancement as a matter of course, and things that, in its early history, would have resurrected every old wood cut in the offiice, now pass with a five line notice. As it is with the COURIER, so it is with our people. For the past three months the Winfield Gas Company has been piling up brick, mortar, and stone, laying mains and erecting machinery without creating any particular sensation, and at eleven o’clock Saturday evening, President Fuller and Superintendent Whiting threw into the furnaces the first shovels-full of coal that set the works going for all time to come.
The ordinances granting the rights and franchises to Col. Wm. Whiting were passed by the city council last September. Soon after the Winfield Gas Company was organized and chartered. In the organization Mr. J. C. Fuller was chosen President; J. B. Lynn, Treasurer; and Ed. P. Greer, Secretary. To this company was assigned the franchises given by the city to Mr. Whiting. In the month of March the task of erecting the works was begun. The completed works will cost about forty thousand dollars. They are first-class throughout and have a capacity sufficient to supply the city until it contains twenty thousand inhabitants.
From the time the first charge was put into the retorts Saturday evening until the present writing, not a leak has been found, nor mistake in arrangement or the placing of complicated machinery detected. This is a record heretofore unknown and due to the mechanical skill and high honor and ability of Mr. John Maxwell, under whose direction every section of pipe and every piece of machinery was placed. Of Mr. Maxwell’s ability as a workman and integrity as a contractor, we cannot speak too highly. Suffice it to say that both the Winfield Gas Company and the Winfield Water Company (whose works he also put in) will back him “to the uttermost ends of the earth.” He is one of the few men we have met thus far who fulfill the spirit as well as the letter of his contracts.
About forty connections to stores, offices, and residences have been made, in addition to the sixty street lamps, and most every business house and a large number of private residences will be connected as soon as the plumbers can get to them. The consumption guaranteed the Gas Company insures the financial success from the start.
The gas will probably be turned on next Friday.
Winfield Courier, June 19, 1884.
The Gas Works.

A force of men arrived from St. Louis last week and are now at work putting up the immense iron holder for the gas works. The first fires were started in the furnaces last Friday for the purpose of slowly drying them out. The mains are all laid and the gas posts for lighting the city are in place. Prominent gas men from St. Louis have visited the works during the week and say they have never seen a more complete and substantial job. Superintendent Whiting states that gas will be turned on by the evening of the 29th.
Winfield Courier, July 31, 1884.
The gas works are now running for all time and a brighter, better light was never produced. With the sixty lamp posts and most of our store buildings lit up, the city presents a really brilliant appearance.