H. Mitchell Godsey, Wharton, TX., then Caddo Parish, Louisiana

Submitted by Mike Miller
Date: 1999-2000




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H. Mitchell Godsey.  The remarkable development of the natural resources 

of Northern Louisiana during recent years has favored the organization of 

great business corporations, and has attracted progressive men of scientific 

attainments and experience to such large industrial centers at Shreveport.  

There can be no question about the citizenship value of such acquisitions, 

and their merit inevitably is recognized with positions of responsibility 

and importance.  In 1921 H. Mitchell Godsey, university man, inventor and 

industrial engineer, became a resident of Shreveport, since when he has 

filled the position of industrial engineer for the Southwestern Gas & 

Electric Company.



H. Mitchell Godsey was born at Wharton, Texas, but was reared at Cleburne, 

Johnson County, that state, where he received his early educational training. 

Later he became a student in the University of Texas, where he completed the 

engineering courses and immediately afterward accepted an engineering position 

with the Texas Oil Company, with which corporation he was connected during 

its great refinery operations at Port Arthur, Texas.  During his entire 

business career he has been identified with oil and gas interests, and his 

present position as industrial engineer for the Southwestern Gas & Electric 

Company, one of the largest concerns of its kind in the South, is one of 

great responsibility.  The Southwestern Gas & Electric Company is a public 

service corporation headed by William Dawes of Chicago, and furnishes 

electricity for power and light, as well as natural gas for industrial and 

domestic purposes not only in Shreveport and vicinity but maintains similar 

plants and service at Texarcana and Beaumont, Texas, and Gulfport, Mississippi.



In addition to ably attending to his engineering duties as above indicated 

Mr. Godsey is concerned in the manufacturing at Shreveport of the Godsey Cast 

Iron Gas Burner, of which he is the designer and inventor.  This device is 

designed for use on all industrial furnaces, steam heating boilers, large 

power boilers and petroleum stills, and designed primarily for the industrial 

application of natural gas, its fundamental advantage, as guaranteed by its 

inventor, being to bring about maximum economy in the use of gas.  It has 

been already installed in a number of large industrial plants and public and 

commercial buildings in this city, finding great favor as one of the very 

few low pressure burners on the market.  There is every indication that in 

its manufacture and distribution it will become an important Shreveport 

industry.  Mr. Godsey is a Knight Templar Mason and a Shriner.



A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 130, by Henry E. Chambers.  

Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.