by Bruce Wells | Apr 5, 2025 | Petroleum History Almanac
“Self-Heating Sad Irons” patented in 1903 used gasoline to make ironing easier.
On ironing day long before electricity, a row of sad irons could be found in the kitchen where the family’s cast-iron cook stove kept them hot. Three or four of these heavy “sadirons” — from the old English word meaning “solid” — cycled between the stove and a nearby ironing board.
With each sad iron weighing five to nine pounds, smoothing clothes led to an exhausting ironing routine. In 1872, Mary Florence Potts from Ottumwa, Iowa, patented a sad iron design with two pointed ends and a quick-change detachable walnut handle.
The 19-year-old housewife’s invention offered relief from blistered palms and was instantly popular nationwide. Thirty years later, a Civil War veteran brought another innovation to ironing.
Gasoline-fueled Sad Iron
John C. Lake, who served in the 16th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, patented (No. 725,261) a gasoline-fueled “Self-Heating Sad Iron” in April 1903.
Lake’s invention made the family fortune and brought prosperity to Big Prairie, Ohio, where he established the Monitor Sad Iron Company on the Pennsylvania Railroad line. The manufacturing company in Amish country would make petroleum-fueled sad irons for the next 50 years.
The 61-year-old inventor earlier had shared three woodworking tool patents with his father Abraham, but none led to production. Lake’s new gasoline-fired sad iron would bring easier ironing to households without electrical service, which in 1903 meant most of America.
As advertised, “Monitor Self-Heating Sad Irons” did not need the kitchen stove, maintained a steady temperature, and turned on and off with a knob. Two tablespoons of alcohol started the process and charged the reservoir delivery system.
“Save Half the Time, Half the Labor, and All the Worry of Laundry Day,” the ads proclaimed as consumers warmly welcomed the gasoline-fueled sad irons, which sold for $3.50 each.
Monitor Sad Iron Company expanded by licensing an army of sales agents. As the factory in Big Prairie grew, by 1920 the company could proclaim 850,000 in cumulative sales. In the 1930s, Monitor added a new brand (Royal) as Lake’s son Bertus received three patents for improvements.
Geologist Iron Man
Antique iron collector Prof. Kevin McCartney knows a lot about Monitor Sad Iron Company and its early competitors like Jubilee and Ideal. A professor of Geology at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, he also serves as director of the Northern Maine Museum of Science.
Since 2013, McCartney has posted more than 50 YouTube videos, “to educate and entertain the avid collector, antique shop owner, pickers and novices alike. Each video is a mini-lesson on a different topic about irons.”
In his Kevin Talks Irons number 54, “Firing up the 1903 Monitor gasoline iron,” he described how consumers preferred Monitor’s gasoline appliance — made with just three durable assemblies — because it was “simple, utilitarian, and economical.”
The Monitor Sad Iron Company’s patented self-heating design became “most common of the early gasoline irons.” Formerly a byproduct of kerosene refining, gasoline also had begun its transformation from “white gas” into an automobile fuel before Anti-Knock Ethyl and other additives added color.
Coleman Lamp Company entered the gasoline-fueled iron business in the 1920s. Based in Wichita, Kansas, Coleman began producing a self-heating iron while securing additional patents in 1940.
Products from Monitor, Coleman, Royal and others competed in catalog offerings and advertisements, especially for potential customers in rural, unelectrified regions. The self-heating appliances burned the basic white gas (naphtha). Coleman later branded and sold the fuel in one-gallon containers as Coleman Fuel.
Coleman Company quit manufacturing gasoline-fueled sad irons after World War II, and the Monitor Sad Iron factory closed in 1954 as electricity relegated most such artifacts to museums and antique shops.
When Mary Florence Potts originally patented her innovative sad iron (today commonly spelled sadiron), she used her name instead of Mrs. Joseph Potts, according to a 2021 “Out of the Attic” article by Julie Martineau of Des Moines County Historical Society (DMCHS).
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2025 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Ironing with Gasoline.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/ironing-with-gasoline. Last Updated: April 1, 2025. Original Published Date: November 5, 2022.
by Bruce Wells | Apr 4, 2025 | Petroleum Transportation
Densmore brothers advanced oil industry infrastructure — and helped create “QWERTY” typewriter keyboard.
As Northwestern Pennsylvania oil production skyrocketed following the Civil War, railroad oil tank cars fabricated by two brothers improved shipment volumes from oilfields to kerosene refineries. The tank car designed by James and Amos Densmore would not last, but more success followed when Amos invented a new keyboard arrangement for typewriters.
Flatbed railroad cars with two wooden oil tank cars became the latest advancement in oilfield infrastructure after the Densmore brothers patented their design on April 10, 1866.
The inventors from Meadville, Pennsylvania, had developed an “Improved Car for Transporting Petroleum” one year earlier in America’s booming oil regions. The first U.S. oil well had been drilled just seven years earlier along Oil Creek in Titusville.
The first practical petroleum railway tank car was invented in 1865 by James and Amos Densmore at the Miller Farm along Oil Creek, Titusville, Pennsylvania. Photo courtesy Drake Well Museum.
Using an Atlantic & Great Western Railroad flatcar, the brothers secured two tanks to ship oil in bulk. The patent (no. 53,794) described and illustrated the railroad car’s design.
The nature of our invention consists in combining two large, light tanks of iron or wood or other material with the platform of a common railway flat freight-car, making them practically part of the car, so as they carry the desired substance in bulk instead of in barrels, casks, or other vessels or packages, as is now universally done on railway cars.
Development of railroad tank cars came when traditional designs, including the flatcar, hopper, and boxcar, proved inadequate for large amounts of oil — often shipped in 42-gallon barrels.
New designs were born out of necessity, as the fledgling oil industry demanded a better car for the movement of its product, according to American-Rails.com.
“Before the car was developed, railroads used a combination of boxcars, flatcars, and gondolas to haul everything from lumber and coal to crude oil, molasses, and water (by use of barrels),” noted Adam Burns in 2022. “One of the most prolific car types you will find moving within a freight train today is the tank car.”
Prone to leaks and top heavy, Densmore tank cars provided a vital service, if only for a few years before single, horizontal tanks replaced them.
According to transportation historian John White Jr., the Densmore brothers’ oil tank design essentially consisted of a flat car with wooden vats attached. “The Central Pacific is known to have used such specialized cars to transport water, he noted in his 1995 book, The American Railroad Freight Car.
“However, prior to the discovery of oil by Colonel Edward (sic) Drake near Titusville, Pennsylvania, on August 27, 1859, the tank car was virtually non-existent,” added White, a former curator of Transportation at the Smithsonian Institution.
Dual Tank Design
The brothers further described the use of special bolts at the top and bottom of their tanks to act as braces and “to prevent any shock or jar to the tank from the swaying of the car while in motion.”
A Pennsylvania Historical Commission marker on U.S. 8 south of Titusville commemorates the Densmore brothers’ significant contribution to petroleum transportation technology. Dedicated in 2004, the marker notes:
The first functional railway oil tank car was invented and constructed in 1865 by James and Amos Densmore at nearby Miller Farm along Oil Creek. It consisted of two wooden tanks placed on a flat railway car; each tank held 40-45 barrels of oil. A successful test shipment was sent in September 1865 to New York City. By 1866, hundreds of tank cars were in use. The Densmore Tank Car revolutionized the bulk transportation of crude oil to market.
The benefit of such railroad cars to the early petroleum industry’s infrastructure was immense, especially as more Americans eagerly sought oil-refined kerosene for lamps.
Despite design limitations that would prove difficult to overcome, independent producers took advantage of the opportunity to transport large amounts of petroleum. Other transportation methods required teamsters hauling barrels to barges on Oil Creek and the Allegheny River to get to kerosene refineries in Pittsburgh.
Riveted cylindrical iron tank cars replaced the Densmore brothers’ dual wooden tanks — seen here discarded. Photo courtesy Drake Well Museum.
As larger refineries were constructed, it was found that it cost $170 less to ship 80 barrels of oil from Titusville to New York in a tank car instead of individual barrels. But the Densmore cars had flaws, notes the Pennsylvania Historical Commission.
They were unstable, top heavy, prone to leaks, and limited in capacity by the eight-foot width of the flatcar. Within a year, oil haulers shifted from the Densmore vertical vats to larger, horizontal riveted iron cylindrical tanks, which also demonstrated greater structural integrity during derailments or collisions.
The same basic cylindrical design for transporting petroleum can be seen as modern railroads load products from corn syrup to chemicals — all in a versatile tank car that got its start in the Pennsylvania oil industry.
The largest tank car ever placed into regular service was Union Tank Car Company’s UTLX 83699, rated at 50,000 gallons in 1963 and used for more than 20 years. A 1965 experimental car built by General American Transportation, the 60,000-gallon “Whale Belly,” GATX 96500, is now on display at the National Museum of Transportation in Saint Louis.
Oil Tanks to Typewriters
Although the Densmore brothers left the oil region by 1867 — their inventiveness was far from over. In 1875, Amos Densmore assisted Christopher Sholes in rearranging the “type writing machine” keyboard so that commonly used letters no longer collided and got stuck. The “QWERTY” arrangement vastly improved Shole’s original 1868 invention.
Amos Densmore helped invent one of the first practical typewriters.
Following his brother’s work with Sholes, inventor of the first practical typewriter, James Densmore’s oilfield financial success helped the brothers establish the Densmore Typewriter Company, which produced its first model in 1891. Few historians have made the oil patch to typewriter keyboard connection — including Densmore biographers.
The Pennsylvania Historical Commission reported that biographies of the Densmore brothers — and their personal papers at the Milwaukee Public Museum — all refer to their innovative typewriters, “but make no mention of their pioneering accomplishment in railroad tank car design.”
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Recommended Reading: The American Railroad Freight Car (1995); Early Days of Oil: A Pictorial History of the Beginnings of the Industry in Pennsylvania
(2000); Story of the Typewriter, 1873-1923 (2019); Myth, Legend, Reality: Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry
(2009). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Densmore Oil Tank Cars.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/transportation/densmore-oil-tank-car. Last Updated: April 3, 2025. Original Published Date: April 7, 2013.
by Bruce Wells | Apr 2, 2025 | Petroleum Technology
Giant Oklahoma rigs drilled to record depths in the 1970s.
The Anadarko Basin, extending more than 50,000 square miles across west-central Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, includes some of the most prolific U.S. natural gas reserves — and a 1974 drilling record.
Beginning in the late 1950s, when technological advances allowed it, Anadarko Basin wells in Oklahoma began to be drilled more than two miles deep in search of natural gas. Dangerous, highly pressurized formations required state-of-the-art blowout preventers (see Ending Oil Gushers — BOP). (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Apr 1, 2025 | Petroleum Companies
The brief oilfield journey of a “staveless” wooden barrel maker.
The U.S. petroleum industry was barely a decade old and as oil discoveries spread from northwestern Pennsylvania’s first commercial well, efficiently transporting the resource became critical. In Brooklyn, New York, the Staveless Barrel and Tank Company organized. The company hoped to exploit a new patent for making barrels.
Capitalized in 1867 at $500,000 with 5,000 shares at $100 each, Staveless Barrel and Tank’s barrel-making process included, “application of scale-boards or veneers in layers, the direction of whose grain is crossed or diversified, and which are connected together, forming a material for the construction, lining, or covering of land and marine structures.” (more…)
