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	Coste, Eugene 2208 Amherst Street SW 1859-1940 Eugene Marius Antoine Coste, geologist and engineer, pioneered the discovery of natural gas in Alberta and Ontario. Coste was born in 1859 in Amherstburg, Ontario the third son of Mathilde and Napoleon Alexander Coste. In 1863 the family moved back to France, and later to Egypt where Eugene’s father worked on the Suez Canal. Eugene was educated at Grenoble and in Paris, France. In 1883 he graduated as a mining engineer from L’Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines and returned to Canada he worked for the Geological Survey before going into private practice. Under his direction, Coste Well #1, the first natural gas well in Essex County, Ontario, was completed in January 1889. In 1908 Coste came west as a consulting engineer and geologist with the Canadian Pacific Railway and in 1909 discovered the Bow Island gas field in southern Alberta. He acquired the rights to the Bow Island field from C.P.R. in 1912 and eventually formed the Canadian Western Natural Gas, Light, Heat and Power Company. In 1912, Coste constructed a 200-mile long pipeline to distribute gas to Lethbridge and Calgary. On July 17, 1912 a flare-lighting ceremony was held in Calgary to celebrate the arrival of natural gas via pipeline. Shortly after the development of Bow Island, Coste developed the Viking gas field, supplying gas to Edmonton. In October 1911, Coste bought two lots in Calgary’s prestigious Mount Royal District from the Canadian Pacific Railway. In 1912 he built a 28-room mansion costing $50,000 on the site. When Coste left Calgary in the early 1920s, he offered the house to the city for use as a childrens’ hospital, but the city commissioner declined the offer. In 1935, the city took possession of the house for not-payment of back taxes. According to The Canadian Mining and Metallurgical Bulletin of February 1940 Coste " was the author of numerous reports and papers dealing with the occurrence and origin of natural gas and petroleum, several of which were presented at meetings of the Institute." In addition to holding a variety of offices with the Canadian Mining Institute, he was a member of the Calgary Board of Trade, the Calgary Golf Club, the Ranchmen’s Club and the Roman Catholic Church. Coste and his wife had four children. A son Dillon, died in Calgary around 1920, just two years before the family moved back to Ontario. Coste died at his Toronto home January 23, 1940. In 1959 a public school bearing the Coste name was officially opened in southwest Calgary’s Haysboro subdivision.
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