Thomas Barger Gregory was an American oil and gas developer and public utility executive.
Background
Gregory was born on October 15, 1860, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of William Sheed Gregory and Amanda Walton Miller Gregory. The family moved to Venango County, Pennsylvania, in 1869, and Gregory grew up in the petroleum region of western Pennsylvania, specifically in the area around Foxburg and Emlenton that was later known as the cradle of the American natural gas industry. A number of the country's first natural gas companies began operations there and several residents, including Gregory, subsequently pioneered natural gas development throughout the nation.
Education
Gregory was educated in public schools at Philadelphia and Foxburg, Pennsylvania, and later at Brooks Military Academy in Cleveland, Ohio.
Career
Gregory began his career in the petroleum industry at the age of eighteen by purchasing oil and gas leases in Venango and Clarion counties. Later he established an oil equipment business at Foxburg. In 1886 Gregory founded the Union Heat and Light Company, which supplied natural gas to Foxburg and St. Petersburg, Pennsylvania. During the next seven years Gregory, a master of administrative and financial detail, expanded the operations of Union Heat and Light (and its electric, water, and gas subsidiaries) into other counties of western Pennsylvania. He also formed new companies to distribute natural gas into West Virginia. Gregory served as president, or managing officer, of these companies, but, as he later recalled, titles meant little in the new industry. He laid pipe, read meters, and kept books in addition to performing his managerial tasks. In 1895 Gregory formed a partnership with Harry J. Crawford of Emlenton, Pennsylvania, that lasted until Gregory's death; it was said to have no legal basis other than verbal agreement. They developed oil and gas properties in all the major oil fields of the United States and Mexico, and by 1932 they held an interest in more than 2, 000 oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania. In 1902 Gregory and Crawford joined with George W. Crawford, a cousin of Harry Crawford, and Milo C. Treat to form the Ohio Fuel Company (later the Ohio Fuel Corporation), a public utility holding company with electric power and natural gas affiliates in Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The next year the group reorganized Manufacturers Light and Heat Company as a public utility holding company with gas, electric, and water company affiliates in New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. In 1909 Gregory and his three partners obtained an interest in the Lone Star Gas Company, the first major natural gas transmission company in the Southwest. They held numerous directorships and executive positions in all these companies and their affiliates. During World War I, Gregory, as a "dollar-a-year" volunteer, served as assistant director of production for the Appalachian fields in the Oil Division of the United States Fuel Administration, a public utility holding company with Natural Gas in the Fuel Administration. Many American cities, their populations swollen because of expanded war production, requested increases in their natural gas supply for domestic use. In order to respond to these needs, Gregory, after conducting hearings, made difficult decisions that often required reductions of the natural gas supply in some areas. In 1926 Gregory and the Crawfords organized Columbia Gas and Electric Corporation, with assets of $268 million. They later merged their interests in the Ohio Fuel Corporation and Manufacturers Light and Heat Company into the company. Eventually, Columbia Gas controlled fifty-five affiliated utility companies that served 257 cities in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Gregory's positions in the new organization indicated its complex structure: he served as an officer, director, or both, of thirty-two of its affiliates. When Samuel Insull's public utility empire began to collapse in 1927, Congress authorized the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the public utilities industry. In its final report the commission questioned several policies of Columbia Gas and Electric, particularly its connection with an affiliate, Panhandle Eastern Gas Pipeline Company. The reports indicated, however, that Gregory's interests were well managed and financially sound. Even the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, which placed restrictions upon the use of the holding company structure, changed few of Gregory's operations. Although Columbia Gas was forced to sell its interest in Panhandle Eastern, Gregory's companies complied with the law through internal reorganization. In his later years Gregory remained vigorous and active in business. The growth and development of highly capitalized corporations capable of integrated operations, which he had pioneered in the public utilities and particularly in natural gas, remained the prevailing industrial pattern. Gregory died in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 11, 1951.
Achievements
Gregory is now best remembered for occupying various positions in oil and gas companies, such as Union Heat and Light Company and Columbia Gas and Electric.
Connections
On June 21, 1888, Gregory married Adda Sophia Whitling; they had two children.
