In May 1892, J.T. Morehead, T.L. Willson, and J.C. King, working out of Morehead's cotton mill in Spray, NC, were looking for a new way to refine aluminum; aluminum at the time being more expensive than gold. (Trivia question: what is the top of the Washington Monument made from?) The process they tested consisted of subjecting ore, lime, and coke to the intense heat of an electric furnace. But their experiments only produced a presumably useless waste product.

Unintentionally, some of this material got wet, producing a flammable gas. They discovered that the material was calcium carbide, and the gas was acetylene. While calcium carbide had been produced 50 years before, this new process was the first to have large-scale commercial potential.

With a source of acetylene readily available, carbide production began commercially in Europe where acetylene lighting was already in use. In 1898, Morehead sold the rights to the new production method to financiers who started the company that eventually became Union Carbide. (No relation to Carbide Industries LLC).

Discoveries of acetylene's potential followed rapidly. By 1900, the oxy-acetylene torch was developed, by 1905, the method used to store acetylene in cylinders. By 1910, Fisher and Allison (the same Fisher who built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway) were supplying car manufacturers with automotive lighting. By the 1930's, Reppe at BASF was discovering the interconnected chemical reactions that led to the bounty of consumer chemistry. However, as necessity drives invention, carbide for steel and foundry use did not gain widespread acceptance until the 1970's.

At its zenith, acetylene production from calcium carbide for industrial use averaged 1.9 billion cubic feet per year from 1956 to 1963.

Pictures: Top left, Willson; Bottom left, Moorehead. Right: A sketch of the rudimentary electric arc furnace at Morehead's North Carolina cotton mill circa 1896.

Source: The History of Acetylene by Ralph O. Tribolet