AFTER WORLD WAR II the future of the Inch Lines, built by the government to transport petroleum during the emergency, was uncertain. Just how to fit these soldiers into a peacetime economy was unknown. Temporarily, the pipe lines were leased to the Tennessee Gas Transmission Company during the coal strike emergency in I946. While politicians and the oil and gas industry debated the future of the largest war baby, the only realistic route for a visionary promoter was to assume that sooner or later the government would dispose of these lines. Thus, long before any definite steps were taken by the government, numerous promoters began planning and making contacts. One of these early planners-who, unlike most of the others, was later able to put his plan into action-was Mr. Claude A. Williams. Mr. Williams, destined to become the president of Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corporation, was then an attorney in Austin, Texas. He had formerly been a district attorney in the big East Texas oil field and assistant secretary of state in Texas. A friend of his was Mr. Rogers Lacy. Mr. Lacy, now deceased, had a keen business knowledge of the natural gas industry, controlled huge natural gas reserves, and had a substantial amount of capital. In February, I946, these two men organized Trans-Continental Gas Pipe Line Company, taking the entire stock of the new organization. Early in I946 the young company offered to purchase the Inch Lines and submitted a bid of $40,000,000 to the War Assets Ad-