Snelling was born in Washington, D.C., on December 13, 1880, the elder of two sons of Walter Comonfort Snelling (1859–1893) and Alice Lee Hornor (1861–1919). Walter Comonfort Snelling was an inventor who patented an adding machine.[1]Alice Lee Hornor, from a Quaker family, became a suffragette who studied law and medicine and traveled and wrote extensively.[2] On June 27, 1894, she remarried, to John Oliver Moque.[3] He had a full brother, Henry Hornor Snelling, and a half-sister, Voleta Alice Moque.[2]
In 1910, Snelling became chemist-in-charge of the explosives laboratory at the United States Bureau of Mines. A major focus of his job was mine safety, but he also researched the production of propane,[4] which had been discovered dissolved in light crude oil in Pennsylvania by Edmund Ronalds in 1864.[6][7] Snelling highlighted propane as a volatile component in gasoline in 1910, built a distilling apparatus, and separated it into liquid and gaseous components. The volatility of these lighter hydrocarbons caused them to be known as "wild" because of the high vapor pressures of unrefined gasoline.
On March 31, 1910, The New York Times reported on Snelling's work with liquefied gas, reporting that, "...a steel bottle will carry enough gas to light an ordinary home for three weeks."[8]
Snelling's work with "wild gas" became the basis for a patent critical to Snelling's next venture, development of a commercial method to produce liquefied petroleum gas, mostly propane.[9] By the end of 1911, Snelling had established contact with Frank P. Peterson, Chester Kerr, and Arthur Kerr, who were actively researching natural gas. On November 11, 1911, American Gasol Co. was incorporated in West Virginia. C. L. Kerr, Frank Peterson and Snelling each held 261 shares of the initial 2,000 shares of the company's stock. Kerr was named president, and Peterson and Snelling were among the directors of the new company.[5] On March 25, 1913, Snelling's method of processing and producing liquified petroleum gases was issued patent #1,056,845.[9] A separate method of producing LP gas through compression was created by Frank Peterson and its patent granted on July 2, 1912.[5]
The first customer for liquified petroleum gas was John Gahring, who had it installed for lighting and cooking in his home as of May 17, 1912. By June 1912, Snelling felt that the business was stable enough to enable him to resign from the Bureau of Mines. However, expansion was slow, and in September 1912, M. L. Benedum and J. C. Trees of Pittsburgh financed the company, paying $10,000 for 200 shares of stock each. On August 25, 1913, E. W. De Bower offered Snelling, Peterson, and Kerr a certified check for $50,000 for American Gasol, and gave them 30 minutes to decide whether or not to sell. Peterson and Kerr voted to accept the offer, and Snelling reluctantly agreed.[5]
Analysis of sample of propane that can be traced back to Snelling has been shown to contain 0.062 mole% methane, 23.44 mole% ethane, 57.366 mole% propane, 7.127 mole% isobutane, 11.957 mole% butane, and 0.044 mole% isopentane.[10] In 1913, Snelling sold his propane patent for $50,000 to Frank Phillips, the founder of Phillips Petroleum Company.[11]
Snelling worked as a consultant and private researcher until 1917 when he was offered full-time employment at the Trojan Powder Company. He eventually became the company's director of research. Snelling remained with Trojan from 1917 until his retirement in 1954, and continued to consult for them until 1957.[4]
In 1946, he became a consultant to the newly formed Atomic Energy Commission, serving as a member of the Raw Materials Advisory Committee until 1960 when it was dissolved. By 1960, he held 179 patents, most in the areas of propane, oil-cracking, explosives, and ordnance.[4]
In 1919, Snelling married Helen Marjorie Gahring (1901–1976) in Union City, Pennsylvania. She was the daughter of his first customer, John Gahring.[5][14] The Snellings had seven children and lived their entire married lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania.[15] The family purchased a home at the edge of the city's West Park in either 1940 or 1941, and Walter remained there until his death on September 10, 1965.[16]
^Leonard, John William; Marquis, Albert Nelson (1916). "Moqué, Alice Lee (Mrs. John Oliver Moqué)". Who's who in America. Vol. 9. Chicago: A. N. Marquis & Company. pp. 1741–1742. Retrieved 13 May 2016.
^"G". Union City Public Library. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
^Whelan, Frank (December 21, 2005). "Laborers, scientist once resided in Allentown homes ** History of houses at 15th and Linden streets dates to 1890s". The Morning Call. pp. B.06.
