Burlington entered the modern age with a bang back in the very early 1900s. 

Unfortunately, that was not necessarily a good thing.

It was about that time that Burlington Gas Co. rolled into town and set up shop between the Rock Island Freight House and the waterworks, at what was then the foot of Arch Street.

The gas company owners were eager to build a profitable customer base, so the newspapers carried numerous advertisements extolling the benefits of coal gas over those old-fashioned kerosene lamps.

The ads worked, and soon just about everyone in town who could afford it was clamoring to be hooked up to the pipes bringing gas to their homes. Gas lamps became a status symbol, and the neighbors were invited over to appreciate the soft glow from the new lighting systems.  

But in 1910, the town was reminded that for all their faults, the kerosene lamps had one big advantage. They stayed put and didn’t send fumes sneaking around the house to cause all sorts of mischief.

Basically, coal gas lamps were sneaky and a considerable number of Burlington residents went to bed at night and failed to turn off the gas to their tightly sealed bedrooms, only to wake somewhere on the other side of the great beyond.

An open gas cock would allow an uninterrupted gas flow through the light fixture, and if this gas flow was not safely burned, then it would accumulate to dangerous levels in a closed room.  

The newspapers carried many accounts of deaths by asphyxiation. Gassing even became a popular way of committing suicide because it was less painful than the then-popular method of drinking a glass of carbolic acid.

If coal gas was a danger to the household, it was an even greater risk to those producing it and piping it around town. This was made clear on a spring  afternoon at the gas company’s riverfront production plant.

The company’s manufacturing boilers were housed in a new one-story brick building with a galvanized roof. But this changed dramatically shortly after plant foreman Joe Lieb walked into the boiler room and was hit by the overwhelming smell of gas.

Lieb had a finely tuned sense of self-preservation, so his immediate reaction was to turn and run toward the nearest exit door. He might have made it if he had not collided with his helper, Tom McShane, coming from the other direction.

Before Lieb could suggest it was best they leave, a tremendous explosion ripped the building apart. Lieb and McShane were propelled through the open doorway, across a loading dock and deposited on a nearby cinder pile. The men were bruised and battered but survived. Behind them, the building began to deconstruct in a most spectacular manner.

The galvanized roof took to the air , separated into pieces and showered down on North Hill and the riverfront. Bricks on the west end of the building left their moorings and, with unerring accuracy, took out most of the windows in the north end of downtown.

A grand cloud of coal dust, powdered bricks and smoke rose from the explosion in a rolling mass that convinced most of the community that the huge gas storage tank located next to the manufacturing plant had detonated.

Jack Nolan had been perched atop a 20-foot ladder as he painted the building and, at first, he seemed to have simply vanished. Miraculously, moments after the explosion he was found covered with paint and half-buried in a large cinder pile 60 feet from the building.

He was picked up and brushed off. To everyone’s amazement, he proved to be unharmed. He did, however, take off the rest of the afternoon.

Workers at the nearby Rock Island Freight House were among the first to arrive on the scene. But first they were needed to remove a large gas company loading dock door from the railroad’s business office.

The fire department and the rest of the town soon arrived to marvel at the damage. Gas company manager E.D. Clark recruited a force of laborers to begin clearing the wreckage, and backup boilers from another building were brought on line. 

Within two days, the company was back in business. But it was noted that the sale of kerosene lamps did enjoy a brief resurgence.