Fulton Gas Works

Fulton Gas Works used to produce the "manufactured natural gas" that lit the Richmond, VA streets and eventually its interiors. In 1816, Baltimore, Maryland became the first city in the USA to have streets lit with manufactured natural gas. It is not the natural gas that we know today that comes out of the ground a gas and is in the headlines about the hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking". Manufactured gas was made by converting coal into a gas, unfortunately leaving behind a "tar" that is believed to contain 500 to 3000 different compounds that can be toxic to humans, animals and plants.