Flambeau

Flambeau. Elwood shivered in his woolen coat inside the Standard Grocery on Alabama Street near Market. He looked at the cash register as he thumbed through his blotter. He glanced over at a forlorn looking group. Not long before, a thin man with a revolver had forced these folks to the rear of the store. The robber had grabbed about $80 from the register and then fled.

Each holiday season since 1909, downtown merchants had hired Elwood and eleven other police detectives and patrolmen to protect against shoplifters. In recent years, it had gotten worse. It was not much better in Fountain Square. He lived there above a shop with his wife and two children. He longed for the day they would not live along a street car route. His scowl lifted as he recalled last night’s flambeau display. That was something.

Thirty years earlier, vast deposits of natural gas and oil were discovered in east-central Indiana. The Trenton Field lay on the western edge of the largest deposits of oil and natural gas in the world. Wells were celebrated. A stub pipe was lit with a flame to show that gas was flowing. The constant flame was coined a flambeau.

The State of Indiana offered free gas for factories. Industry followed. The Ball Corporation made glass in Muncie. U.S. Steel chose northern Indiana. Automobile and glass manufacturing industries came to Indianapolis. Indianapolis, and other towns, installed free gas lights and piped gas to homes as heating fuel. Electricity produced from gas ran street cars. Cheap light, heat and transportation made urban living more desirable. Indianapolis prospered.

In 1894, plans were envisioned to elevate the railroad tracks leading into Union Station over several city streets. In 1905, the Mayor met in secret with representatives of Illinois Central and reached an accord on how and when to elevate the Indianapolis Southern tracks. The Monon Railroad remained opposed to the plan.

During a 1904 dinner at the Commercial Club, fifty of the leading business and professional men of the city put on foot a movement to grow the population of Indianapolis to 300,000 by 1910.

Auto shows exhibited Studebakers, Buicks, Packards, Maxwells, Chevrolets, Nashes, Marmons, Stutzs, Pierce-Arrows, and Fords. Garages opened all over town to install tires, shock absorbers, head lamps, horns and other accessories on these autos.

And the flambeaus burned day and night. They attracted tourists. About ninety percent of Indiana’s natural gas was wasted in flambeau displays.

Wasteful practices rapidly depleted the fields as well. Producers did not realize the pressure provided by natural gas allowed them to pump oil from their wells. Scientists warned that that the supply of gas would run out. By 1902, gas yields began to decline. By 1910, gas production had slowed to a trickle. In some ways, the decline of the gas industry went unnoticed. Indiana had become a leading industrial state. Coal burning electric plants were built to power the factories and towns.

Other impacts were more subtle.

On the eve of the 1913 elections, street car workers called a strike. The strike prevented many people from voting. There was public outrage. The union held firm in its demands. Other unions and labor organizations joined in. Business leaders demanded that the governor end the strike. Governor Ralston called out the Indiana National Guard and put the city under martial law.

The strikers stormed the Statehouse. Ralston emerged from the capital and offered to withdraw the troops if the strikers would go back to work and negotiate peacefully. The concessions he made ended the strike that day. The strike led to several labor protection laws including a minimum wage, regular work weeks and improved working conditions.

In 1917, the Chamber of Commerce launched an investigation on the decision of the State Council of Defense to postpone completion of the Union Station railroad track elevation until after the war. The Monon Railroad was still a hold out.

And Elwood could moonlight in hopes of moving his family up in the world.