Was their gas the result of coke production?
Something I have always wondered about..

Yes,

That was the most common source of coke. The Lowell (Mass.)
Gas Works shut down in the late 1970's when it could no longer
get rid of the coal gas "by product" of coke by selling it to users
for heating fuel.

Once the natural gas pipelines were in service (up in Eastern
Massachusetts it was a Tenneco Gas pipeline) many users
switched from coke to natural gas. Lowell Gas lost its big
institutional users; -- Middlesex County House of Correction
two large local hospitals that'd burned coke in their central
heating plants.

Mal Houck
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