It was April 19, 1973 when hundreds of craters and geysers mysteriously appeared around the small Northern Michigan community of Williamsburg near Traverse City. The 100 to 150 craters ranged from teacup-size fissures to sinkholes measuring up to 25 feet wide and 15 feet deep.
State officials eventually determined the outbreak was caused by gas seeping underground from a natural gas drilling operation four miles away, but not before most of the town’s 450 people were evacuated and displaced for months.
M-72, a highway that was just 3 years old at the time of the incident, was virtually destroyed and the community’s town hall was also threatened, according to a United Press International story published on April 20, 1973.
“The town hall was on the verge of toppling today as gaseous, bubbling craters popped open threatening a massive gas eruption,” the article stated.
“The earth around town hall is almost completely eaten up,” said Grand Traverse County Police Sgt. Tom Schmuckal in the article. “It is less than a foot from surrounding the entire foundation.”
Well E1-22, located south of Williamsburg and owned by Amoco Production Co., then a subsidiary Standard Oil of Indiana, was first indicted by a Department of Natural Resources spokesmen as the cause of the eruptions in the article. The well was immediately sealed.
Many feared that a single spark could set off a massive explosion in the community. The DNR issued an emergency order on April 24, 1973 which required drillers of all new wells to install a layer of protective casing extending below porous rock formations through which the gas can leak.
For the full article, see Brandon Champion, “Natural gas leak nearly destroyed Michigan village this week in 1973“, MLive, April 21, 2016.