OUR HALLOWED GROUND

- Alberta's first gas discovery was accidental; a CPR crew drilling for water in 1883 at Langevin siding, in southeastern Alberta, and discovered gas instead at 1155 feet. Encouraged by 500 psi wellhead pressure, lines were quickly laid to the nearby city of Medicine Hat. For years there after street lights burned 24 hours a day in the belief the cost of fuel consumed was less than a Lamplighter's salary.

- Alberta's longest living "blow out" was drilled in 1897 at Pelican Rapids, along the Athabasca River, where gas blew wild for 21 years.

- Oil Seepages in central Alberta were known to the aboriginal people for centuries and employed as medicine and canoe caulking.

- Gas seepage along Turner Valley's Sheep River provided convenient cook stops for cattle drives of the late 1800s.

- Turn of the century Turner Valley rancher William Herron snapped a match to a rock fissure on his property and amazed a group of prospective investors by cooking their meals over the escaping gas.

- Herron's Turner Valley 2700 foot discovery well, Dingman #1, was drilled at one of these seeps by a partnership which included Sir James A. Lougheed, future Prime Minister R.B. Bennett, A.E. Cross and legal magnate W.H. McLaws. It flowed 4MMCF/D sweet gas on 14 May 1914, putting Turner Valley on the world map with front-page coverage through the British Commonwealth.

From, Historic Turner Valley, Cradle of Westen Canada's Oil and Gas Industry, pg 2