Electric Light Department - 1909

ELECTRIC

Posted By: Pat Ryan White (email)
Date: 2/16/2025 at 08:58:03

ELECTRIC LIGHT DEPARTMENT

It is understood that the city council will this evening order an all day electric service. If this is so, it means a good deal to merchants and residences where a day current would prove a great boon. Aside from this, the use of the electric flatiron and many other kitchen utensils, motors for sewing machines, electric coffee grinders, electric photographic apparatus, motors in the printing shops, and other places where power is used will become very common. What the council is facing is an enlargement of the capacity at the generating plant. The demand for current is abnormal. The force is unable to keep up with orders for wiring. If all the lights now wired in should be turned on at once, the load would cripple the engine power of the plant. The city has itself been developing a manufacturing plant on its own hook, even if it has not realized it. More boilers, more engine capacity and more dynamo capacity will be a necessity very soon if the demand continues. In the meanwhile, the earnings of the plant are paying for all cost of operation, all repairs all extensions, is lighting the streets of the city free, and shouldering too much of the cost of the operations of the water department. It is seldom that a municipal plant scores such a success, but we will give credit to the plant here, although we never dreamed that it would become a financial success.

(“Mt. Pleasant Daily News”, Monday, January 11, 1909, page 2)

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Resource provided by Henry County Heritage Trust, Mount Pleasant, Iowa; transcription done by Liam Christensen, University of Northern Iowa Public History Field Experience Class, Spring 2025.