HELIUM
GAS - DEXTER.
The postoffice opened October 27, 1870,
at Dexter, Kansas, with Isaac B. Todd as postmaster. The office had to get its
mail from Eureka as best it could, usually being brought by anyone who happened
to be coming. In March of 1871 the mail route from Eureka to Howard City was
extended to Arkansas City and Dexter was supplied by it. The office remains
open. See story in Cowley County Heritage book.
The small community of Dexter has
received international advertising for many years because of the chance
discovery in 1903 of helium on the farm of William Greenwell.
The well was drilled by the Dexter Oil
Gas and Development Company and was financed by Kansas City interests with
John Bagnell in charge. The well, which went only 560 feet deep, was drilled
with standard tools and a Manila line by C.A. Boggs (brother of C.M. Boggs of
Kanotex Refining Company) and “Shorty” Nye. The tool dressers were listed as
Charley Moore and “Kentucky Joe.”
It was the morning of May 11, 1903, that
the gas was struck in a 10-inch hole. The well came in with such strong force
that the roar of the escaping gas could be heard for blocks. It was reported
flowing at seven and a forth million cubic feet a day.
Dexter townspeople were excited over the
event and talked of piping gas to their homes for heating and cooking purposes,
perhaps even laying lines to neighboring Arkansas City and Winfield.
Two weeks after the discovery, it was
decided to have a great celebration to climax with the lighting of the gas from
the well at night. Throngs of spectators arrived for the event with the
Missouri Pacific railroad running excursion trains to Dexter for the event.
As the public awaited the demonstration,
a torch was applied to the flow of gas from the pipe, only to have the flame
instantly blown out by the gas. Several attempts were made to ignite the gas,
all without success. A bonfire was made of trash and the flow of gas directed
at the fire. This also failed.
Gloom spread over the gathering, which
quickly dispersed. Dexter was chagrined and disappointed. In derision the gas
was called “wild gas” because it refused to burn.
Two years passed before someone thought
to send a sample to the University of Kansas where Professors Cady and
McFarland, after exhaustive tests, surprisingly discovered the sample not only
was 80 per cent nitrogen but also contained 1.84 per cent non-inflammable
helium.
Helium, a basic element, first was
discovered in 1868 by a British scientist named Lockyear, in the gasses
surrounding the sun. Hence the name helium, derived from a Greek word meaning
“the sun.” In 1895 another British scientist, Sir William Ramsey, discovered
helium in certain uranium bearing minerals found on earth, including meteoric
iron in Augusta County, Virginia.
Helium later was found to exist in minute
quantities in the atmosphere and in gas from mineral springs in the Black
Forest in Germany. But for the first time in all history it was discovered as a
constituent of natural gas in the Dexter well.
Dexter’s helium field has had an up and
down existence. At first no use could be found for this new gas. Eventually it
became known as an excellent ingredient for the inflation of aircraft balloons.
There now are 150 uses for helium, other than in airships. By using helium as a
shield around an electrode, magnesium alloys can be successfully welded. Helium
can be blended with atmospheres for divers and caisson workers, for asthma
suffers and others requiring the administration of oxygen. Because of the
lightness of helium, it can be mixed with oxygen so that more life-giving
oxygen may be breathed into lungs with the same effort. It is used in
anesthetics and in other various processes of industry.
[ARTICLE ABOUT HELIUM GAS IN KANSAS.]
Arkansas City Traveler, Friday, August 4, 1922.
(From
K. C. Journal-Post)
The spotlight of the world again is
centered on Kansas.
A scientific discovery and the richest
helium containing gas field in the world, a combination which promises to make
dreams of American inter-city travel by dirigible and even privately owned
airships a reality, rather than freak laws and queer political pranks, this
time is drawing the attention of the entire nation and Europe to the Sunflower
state.
For it was Hamilton P. Cady, professor in
chemistry at the University of Kansas, that first identified helium gas as a
part of the natural gas of the Midcontinent field, and as a war service he and
David F. McFarland and other associates perfected a commercial method of
extracting the helium at a cost that is not prohibitive even for the man of
average means to use.
Natural gas bearing the largest helium
content of any field in the world is now found at Dexter, in Cowley County,
Kansas, a little more than 200 miles from Kansas City.
The value of helium gas lies in the
virtue that it will not ignite save under an enormously high temperature, which
makes it valuable for use in balloons and dirigibles, since its use eliminates
all possibility of explosion and renders the use of a gasoline motor, mounted
directly under the gas bag, safe and practical.
Helium gas is considered a very rare
product and not until recently was it discovered that the Dexter product was
sufficient to be a factor in our national business affairs.
The story of helium is one of the
romances of science. Probably nothing in the scientific world, except radium,
compares with it in human interest. Helium is one of the best examples of a
discovery in pure science that has wide commercial application.
Erection of a $1,000,000 plant at Dexter,
with a capacity of 50,000 feet daily, has been announced by Kansas City and New
York interests.
The only other plant in the United States
formerly was in Fort Worth, Texas, which is operated by the United States
government. The helium from this plant is used exclusively in army and navy
dirigibles, and the scarcity of the gas in this field makes the cost of
production too high for commercial use.
The first well was drilled near Dexter in
1903. After the gas was discovered, a sample was sent to the University of
Kansas for analysis. In the analysis made by Prof. Cady and Prof. McFarland, it
was discovered that the helium content of the gas was 1.82 percent. After the
test was made, Prof. Cady procured samples from all the gas fields of Kansas.
The Dexter sample contained the larger percentage of helium than any of the
other samples obtained in the state. Recent investigation showed that the
Dexter field contains the largest amount of helium of any field in the world.
Helium gas was never in great demand
until the United States entered the world war. In 1917 an experimental station
was built by the government at Fort Worth. This plant grew to be a very large
station, and at the time the armistice was signed had shipped 150,000,000 feet
of helium gas in steel containers to England.
Geological investigations demonstrated
the possibility of supplying helium from natural gas.
The first flight of an airship filled
with helium gas took place on December 16, 1921, when the C-7 blimp of the
United States navy sailed over the capitol at Washington. A ship of that size
requires 180,000 cubic feet of helium. During the war the cost of enough gas to
fill the ship would have been $350,000. The cost of filling the same size
balloon under present conditions would not be more than $18,000 as helium is now
extracted at a cost of about 10 cents a cubic foot.
Pure helium has about 93 percent the
lifting power of hydrogen. Helium diffuses through a fabric at approximately 75
percent of the rate of hydrogen.
The process of separating helium from
natural gas is one of refrigeration. The refrigeration of the gases reduces all
of the other gases except helium to a liquid.
A disaster such as happened to the Roma
at Hampton Roads, early in February, in which thirty-four lives were lost,
could have been prevented had the bag been filled with helium, according to a
report made Wednesday by the investigating committee of the war department.
If the Germans had been able to use
helium to inflate their Zeppelins, the story of the world war might have been
different. From experience gained in the defense of London, it was learned that
the dirigible was vulnerable against a well-organized attack. The Germans too
recognized this point and invariably made attacks on England at night,
operating from a high altitude in order to minimize the attacks from airplanes,
as a single incendiary bullet fired into a dirigible inflated with hydrogen
would quickly bring the ship down in flames. The inflammability of the hydrogen
was the one weak point in this method of attack.
The constant fear of a swift and terrible
death had its effect also on the operating crews, lessening their efficiency.
The non-inflammability of helium also
makes it possible to place the engines in the framework of the dirigible,
giving greater control of the craft and increased speed.
The formation of inter-city and
interstate passenger and freight carrying dirigible services are expected to be
made soon after the commercial plant at Dexter is in operation. The low price
of helium as compared with the cost of hydrogen, which the passenger-carrying
dirigibles of Europe use, is expected to make air passenger and freight traffic
on a large scale much more successful in this country than in Europe. The
minimizing of danger will be the largest factor in the promotion of an American
air travel line.
A privately owned dirigible with a small
motor and comparatively small gas bag is not out of the realm of possibility
since the discovery of helium in quantities.
And all of this the world owes to Kansas
and a Kansas man.
[PLANS COMPLETED FOR HELIUM PLANT AT
DEXTER SOON.]
Arkansas City Traveler, Saturday, August 5, 1922. Front Page.
In connection with the story published
yesterday by the Traveler on the proposed helium gas plant at Dexter,
the Traveler has received the following information from Charles E.
Rador, attorney, Kansas City, Missouri.
“For your information we wish to inform
you that the organization of the Dexter Helium Company of America, at Dexter,
Kansas, is completed and the declaration of trust filed for record in Jackson
County, Missouri. Furthermore, we are pleased to inform you that we have
completed an underwriting agreement for the securities of the corporation to
provide funds to carry out its plans.
“A New York broker, who is interested in
this underwriting agreement, is now in Kansas City; and a representative of
oil interest in Tulsa has joined the underwriting so that mid-west investors
will have the same opportunity as eastern investors to join in the enterprise.
“As a matter of further interest, Martin
W. Baden, a geologist of Winfield, Kansas, is in Kansas City and has been
engaged by the Dexter Helium Company of America as its geologist. Mr. Baden has
just completed a temporary and very favorable report concerning the holdings of
the company, which are known to contain the richest helium gas bearing sands in
the world today according to Kansas and national geologists.”
[UPDATE.]
Arkansas City Traveler, Monday, April 17, 2000.
Kansas
celebrates its role in discovery of helium.
Dexter
field cited for importance in finding ‘odorless gas’ 95 years ago.
LAWRENCE (AP)—The odorless, colorless,
lighter-than-air gas that has come to be known as helium is rooted in Kansas
history, and that role was celebrated during the weekend at the University of
Kansas.
On Saturday, the American Chemical
Society marked the 1905 discovery in Kansas that helium is not extremely rare
on Earth, but found in abundance in natural gas.
The Kansas building where the discovery
was made—Bailey Hall—was named a National Historic Chemical Landmark. A plaque
was presented to the university by the American Chemical Society, the world’s
largest scientific society.
Bailey Hall, used by the chemistry
department until the 1950s, is the 32nd landmark identified by the
chemical society since 1992.
Since astronomers discovered helium in
1868, the gas has been used in everything from balloons to magnetic resonance
imaging to the space shuttle’s rocket boosters. The gas lifts blimps, protects
deep-sea divers, and makes those who breathe it sound funny.
The story of helium’s discovery in
natural gas begins in May 1903 in Dexter, Kansas, about 45 miles southeast of
Wichita.
The town put on a daylong celebration of
a local company’s discovery of a natural gas well, including the release of a
stream of natural gas. The gas was supposed to explode and light up the sky
when it came into contact with a hay bale set on fire above it.
Instead, the natural gas extinguished the
burning hay. Several more trials also fizzled.
Erasmus Haworth, a Kansas geology professor
who was puzzled by the incident, sent a cylinder of the Dexter gas to the
University of Kansas. The university had just built a chemistry building and
had acquired a liquid air machine, the only one of its kind west of the
Mississippi.
On Dec. 7, 1905, Professor Hamilton Cady
and Associate Professor David McFarland analyzed the sample and discovered that
it was nearly 2 percent helium.
“At the time, they just shrugged it off
because they didn’t know of any use for helium,” said Grover Everett, a retired
Kansas chemistry professor who researched the story. “It was a number of years
before its importance was realized.”
In the decade that followed, helium
remained a curiosity and the entire U.S. supply rested in three glass tubes on
a shelf at KU, the American Chemical Society said.
That changed in 1917, when the British
suggested that the United States produce enough helium to raise
lighter-than-air craft for the Allied war effort.
Large-scale production to inflate blimps
came too late for World War I. But the helium-filled blimps and anti-aircraft
balloons were used extensively in World War II.
The town of Dexter, population 400, is
planning a centennial celebration for the town’s role in the discovery. The
town’s historical marker on U.S. 166 declares helium as “The Gas that Wouldn’t
Burn.”