Early pipelines and markets The first natural gas sold in the U.S. was in
Fredonia, New York in 1825, by William Hart. It was built to pipe the gas from the well to nearby shops, Hart improvised a gasometer at the well site and laid pipe to the properties of his first customers. Hart was later consulted to develop a
gas lighting system for the Barcelona Lighthouse in 1829. These early pipelines (no longer in use) were made of pine logs. Meanwhile,
manufactured gas was more commonly used than natural gas in the early 19th century, first introduced in Baltimore in 1816 with underground pipes laid starting in 1851. The first major U.S. city to pipe in
natural gas was Pittsburgh, in 1883, sold by Penn Fuel Gas Company from a well twenty miles from the city, and transported via a wrought-iron pipe 5 5/8 inch in diameter. This pipeline to Pittsburgh was the first use a telescoping design with narrower pipeline at the well site and widening widths as it entered the city as a means to control the pressure inside the line.
19th and 20th century technologies and standards In 1885,
Solomon Dresser patented a new coupling that was an important advancement in engineering pipeline, making it possible to assemble longer, less leaky pipes that were easier to screw together. Pipeline laid before the 1950s did not have technology for inspecting buried lines for erosion or corrosion; starting that decade, most pipeline operators began using
pigging systems as well as external pipe coating to protect pipes from decay and detect defects. Steel has been used in many pipeline projects since the 1950s, as well as plastic beginning in the 1970s. In 1970, the federal Gas Code (Part 192) was adopted, based on the ASME B31.8 technical standard that was in use by some states to regulate the quality and safety of pipeline construction; pipelines installed before these safety rules were established were granted exceptions. The full pipeline network is an estimated 3 million miles, including transmission lines as well as gathering lines, mains, and service lines to consumers. the largest diameters are for intrastate and interstate transmission lines that channel natural gas into smaller mains, and service lines. Many bare steel pipelines (uncoated) and other aging pipelines like those made of iron or brittle plastics, are being taken out of service and replaced to prevent pipeline failures. ==Safety==