{"id":3924,"date":"2026-07-10T20:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T00:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3924"},"modified":"2026-07-06T10:37:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T14:37:19","slug":"the-untamable-monster-well-of-1894-big-moses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3924","title":{"rendered":"The Untamable Monster Well of 1894: Big Moses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/36CmAeo5lmU?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In September 1894, a routine drilling operation on a Tyler County, West Virginia, farm broke into a massive natural gas pocket, unleashing one of the most powerful and uncontrollable wells the world had ever seen. For nearly a year, the Big Moses well defied human engineering, triggered massive fissures in the ground, survived two separate lightning strikes, and wasted billions of cubic feet of gas.<\/p>\n<p>Join us as we tell this wild true story from the West Virginia oil boom era about the legendary Big Moses gas well.<\/p>\n<p>If you like these historical stories, make sure to hit that subscribe button and leave us a comment on your favorite podcast app to help others find the podcast.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for listening!<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_5169\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3924-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72839311\/download.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72839311\/download.mp3\">https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72839311\/download.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72839311\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?powerpress_pinw=3924-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72839311\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"download.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?feed=podcast\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><!--powerpress_player-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In September 1894, a routine drilling operation on a Tyler County, West Virginia, farm broke into a massive natural gas pocket, unleashing one of the most powerful and uncontrollable wells the world had ever seen. For nearly a year, the Big Moses well defied human engineering, triggered massive fissures in the ground, survived two separate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23,34],"tags":[1825,1513,1820,1828,1822,1827,1826,1821,1824,1051,1823,778],"class_list":["post-3924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disasters","category-the-1890s","tag-1890s-history","tag-appalachia-history","tag-big-moses-gas-well","tag-historic-drilling-accidents","tag-historic-industrial-disasters","tag-historical-true-stories","tag-natural-gas-explosion-history","tag-oil-boom-history","tag-sistersville-west-virginia","tag-stories-of-appalachia-podcast","tag-tyler-county-wv","tag-west-virginia-history"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-11i","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3924"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3928,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924\/revisions\/3928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}