Based on references in "History of Northern Natural Gas Company" and the type writer font this document was presumably written in the early 1970's.  No specific date or author is referenced in the document.  If you have any information about the author, the date this was written or the purpose of it's publication please let us know by using the contact us button. 

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Northern  Natural Gas Company's A-Line first delivered natural gas to Iowa in 1930. As natural gas became increasingly plentiful in the state, it began  to displace coal gas for domestic use and coal for industrial power. One benefit to this conversion  was that urban air pollution declined as well. Iowa's manufactured coal gas plants gradually became relics of a nineteenth century  technology, but they "reappeared" in the 1980s as locations of coal tar residue created  in the process of manufacturing coal gas. Scientists and engineers  continue to work on developing  more efficient means to produce an economical synthetic  form of coal gas, but until such  a process is successful, natural gas will be the superior  fossil fuel.

To preserve the history that this pipeline  represents, the State Historical Society of Iowa and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, under the guidelines of the National Historic Preservation Act, requested  the preparation of this essay that traces the origins of Northern Natural Gas Company, the coming  of natural gas to Iowa, and  the ways in which Iowans used this fuel.