1. The document discusses the establishment of the natural gas industry in Fredonia, New York in the 19th century, beginning with William Hart drilling the first commercial gas well around 1850. 2. Preston Barmore, a graduate of SUNY Fredonia, realized gas was seeping from cracks in the shale and fractured a well with gunpowder in 1858, the first recorded fracturing stimulation. 3. Natural gas exploration continued in western New York, with discoveries of gas fields near Collins, NY in the 1880s that supplied gas to Buffalo and Springville.