Brave Station: The Early History of Oil and Gas in Southwestern Pennsylvania

The history of the natural gas industry in southwestern Pennsylvania runs as deep as the Marcellus Shale layer. When we look at the region, and understand how intimately woven the ties of industry and cultural identity are, and how they have shaped not only the region but the people within it, it is vital we consider this in our work.

I ask you to look at Brave Station, built by Peoples Natural Gas Company (PNGC) in the small town of Brave, Pennsylvania. The village of Brave is situated in Greene County, nearly flush with the county line of Monongalia County, West Virginia. Growing up, I spent many days in Brave, as much of my family still lives there. Sitting on my grandma’s back porch, watching the train that ran by her backyard and hearing that familiar train whistle, was a normal part of everyday life when I was a child. Just behind the railroad tracks sat what my family referred to as “the Plant”. 

In some ways, the Plant dominated my childhood. After Peoples Gas moved on from the plant, it eventually became Accurate Brass Corporation (now called Anderson Fittings), where my father worked and was a union member. To this day, the building still stands. I have memories of my cousins fishing off the dam and watching the turtles that would line the banks of Dunkard Creek in the summer to sun themselves. Through my childhood eyes, the Plant was as normal a part of life as attending school. It was just there. I never questioned why, where it came from, or the fact that not everyone lived in the shadow of such a building.

It is important to understand the history of Brave Station, and what exactly it was:  a compressor station. At the time it was built, it was the largest compressor station in the world. The intended use of the station was to aid in moving natural gas from recently discovered sources in West Virginia to the Pittsburgh area, where it would be used in the steel mills and other manufacturing facilities in and around the city. 

In those early days, Brave Station employed between 40-60 men (women did not work there). It was common practice for folks to recommend their friends and family to the company for hire, and because of this, one would often see many members of a singular family working there. Getting hired was seen as a blessing, because it often meant the man had a job for his entire lifetime. Were he to find himself injured on the job, he would be placed in another position until his retirement, and if a man unfortunately lost his life on the job, a job was guaranteed to his son when his son came of age to work. It is easy to see how this alone began to plant seeds of loyalty to the company within the families of these men. Interestingly, ten separate men with the name of Cumberledge have been listed as being employed by PNGC at Brave Station. All 10 of those men were descended from the original Cumberledge in the area, and all 10 are my own distant relatives on my mother’s side. To this day, much of my family (and the descendants of many other plant workers) still reside in Brave or the surrounding areas. I myself grew up a short ten-minute drive away.

Before the construction of Brave Station, farming was the primary source of income, and with it came a lot of financial instability and hardship. In my great grandmother (on my father’s side) Helen Snell Kent’s memoir is a description of some of the hardships that farmers could face:

“That was the year the Kent family was struck by another tragedy. Their cows and beef cattle contracted rabies from a rabid dog. One after another came down with it. You don’t know what suffering is, until you watch an animal die of rabies. The cows would look at you with wild staring eyes, rush at you, and bawl time after time until they never stopped, and they couldn’t be killed because it had to run its course until the animal died. Then its brain could be examined, and rabies declared the cause of death, then a small State compensation paid.”

It’s not hard to see why a job with PNGC was so appealing. And likewise, I am sure it greatly benefited Peoples that they were provided with workers for years on end simply through word of mouth. There were other advantages to living in Brave as the years went on and PNGC continued to assert their presence in the town. Over time, company houses were built. Many of these homes still stand and are occupied. Sewage found its way there in 1925, and gone were the days of outhouses. In addition, a reservoir pond was built and treated water was provided to the town; garbage was collected free of charge; and the main street was lined with lights powered by electricity provided by the gas company. A new elementary school was built, and an ice plant was opened at Brave Station for the benefit of the community as well as the plant itself. A railroad was also built to more easily carry coal to power the plant’s boilers. It seemed to those who lived there that Brave was prospering.

We have to imagine folks who have lived such hard lives in a rural area gaining access to these things for the first time and how much that meant to them, good or bad. Imagine the hope people had for the future, for their children, seeing these conveniences enter their lives for the first time. You can begin to see how their loyalty began to deepen. These people were built on pure grit. They worked hard, many probably played even harder, and they were proud of what they did for work. Their sacrifices enabled the creation of steel that Pittsburgh became so famous for, and people lovingly like to say that steel “built this country.” Rural people in our region have often given more than their fair share, and yet receive very little credit for their contributions to the lives of those all across our country.

Brave Station began operation on March 3, 1907 and brought not only an industrial boom to the area, but an economic one as well. Upon completion, the plant boasted 16 boilers, with four more added in 1912, and created countless jobs for county residents. As production continued, the need for a cooling system arose, and Peoples Natural Gas invested $500,000 at the time (the equivalent of roughly 16 million today) to build them. However, this was no easy feat. During the early 1900s, men and horses were the primary sources of labor. I cannot begin to imagine what it must have been like to watch the sweat on the brows of the men who worked to erect Brave Station.

Brave Station wasn’t without problems, however. Just before noon on April 2, 1917 a sound described as “the loudest noise ever heard in the tri-state area” was heard coming from the station. Station employees were repairing a leak in a connection joint from the main plant to a gasoline plant PNGC had constructed in 1914 near the plant. Unfortunately, a shut-off valve failed, which allowed gas to enter the pipes, unbeknownst to the men. The friction that resulted from them working ignited the gas and resulted in an explosion that instantly killed three men. Three more would later die as a result of their injuries. Five other men survived, but one could hardly say they did so unscathed. Most were covered in very serious burns. The plant was surrounded by a chain link fence, which prevented some of the men from escaping the area. My Granny Kent wrote about this when recalling how they had received letters detailing what had happened at the plant:

“None of Mom’s people were hurt. A few days later Mom got a letter from home telling us more about it. As it happened, all working and living in Brave, came home to eat lunch. So Mom’s Dad and brothers were home eating, when the plant blew up. Mom and Dad were so distressed to learn the names of friends killed, and others badly burned. They told of a man trying to climb over the chain link fence, only to die there. The fence was placed there to keep the public out, as there was a danger to anyone coming near the plant. It served to trap the men in when the explosion came.”

As a result, the gasoline plant was destroyed. Damages were estimated at $100,000 (the equivalent of over $2.8 million today). A tank of oil also caught fire from the blast, and black smoke could be seen for miles. But the damage was not done. A second explosion occurred later in the afternoon. Thankfully, no one was injured, but there was a deep crater in the ground where it had happened. The feeder lines burned until they could be shut off, which was no easy task. Despite all of this however, Peoples did go on to build another gasoline plant to replace the one that was damaged.

Despite this long history of production, the Brave Station compressors were shut down for good on September 28th, 1959. The remaining workers of the plant were offered jobs throughout the tri-state area. The property was then bought by a local grocer, Mike Bell, but after a building fire he sold it to Accurate Brass (later named Accurate Forge), who owned the plant at the time my father worked there. 

I could go on and on about more details of this tiny glimpse into the history of this one small region of SW Pennsylvania, but please know there are many more little towns like it, and many other similar stories. I hope as you leave this blog post, you will consider the humanity of the people at the center of these issues and you will see that the work we do at the Center for Coalfield Justice simply cannot be thought about in black and white terms; there’s a whole lot of gray out there. 

When we think of solutions as we transition from fossil fuels, it is of the utmost importance that we not only consider the structures left to rust by industry and their environmental impacts, but also the people left behind to pick up the pieces of what once was. We must consider how we can uplift these families and ensure that not only can they move forward from their past jobs with dignity, but that we not disparage them because of their employment. We must also understand how these families came to depend upon industry (and likewise, industry depends upon them), and why their identities are so intricately woven together.

I truly believe a better future is possible, and that we can build that future without leaving anyone behind or ignoring their familial legacies. If we all commit ourselves to moving forward with empathy and understanding, I honestly think we can create something beautiful, where everyone has a seat at the table.