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The Beginning of Modern Electric Power Service in Utah, 1912-22
The Beginning of Modern Electric Power Service in Utah, 1912-22
BY JOHN S. MCCORMICK
ELECTRICITY HAS FASCINATED PEOPLE for thousands of years. In about 600 B.C. the Greek philosopher Thales produced static electricity by rubbing amber with a piece of cloth. Doing that, he discovered, gave the amber the power to attract small bits of wood, feathers, leaves, and other light objects. (The word electricity comes from the Greek word for amber, elektron.) It was not until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, that the body of knowledge about electricity began to grow and not until the late 1800s, with the invention of the generator, the electric light, and the electric motor, that it could be put to practical use.
Little has been written about the history and development of electricity in Utah. 2 What has focuses on the first period of that history, the years from 1881, when electric service began in Utah, to 1912, when, as Obed C. Haycock says, the formation of Utah Power & Light Company "ushered in a new era of power development in the state. " The subsequent years have received almost no attention from historians. The following article deals with the founding of Utah Power & Light and its first ten years, during which time the foundation of the modern electric power industry was established.
Electric service in Utah began in the spring of 1881 when the Salt Lake City Light, Heat, and Power Company started supplying electricity to light some of Salt Lake City's streets, businesses, and public buildings. The next twenty years or so was a time of slow progress and faltering steps. As in the rest of the country, the initial enthusiasm about the possibilities and benefits of electricity changed to exasperation and skepticism. Most of Utah's early power plants were small, isolated, locally owned, poorly financed and equipped, and located on canyon streams where they were subject to uncertain fluctuations. Technical knowledge was limited and early equipment unsophisticated. Service was unreliable, available only part-time, and only slowly extended throughout the state.
Beginning in the 1890s the situation began to change. Two things happened. The first was a technological explosion. Vast improvements were made in generators and, at the same time, in the means of distributing the electrical current generators produced. The regulator, for example, made it possible to maintain a steady electric load even as demands on the line changed from minute to minute. With the invention of the switch, current could be shifted from one line to another in case of trouble. The development of alternating current and the use of transformers allowed electricity to be generated at a low voltage, stepped up to a higher voltage for more efficient transmission, and then stepped back down to a lower voltage for use, making electricity much safer to use and vastly increasing the area an electric power plant could service. Previously, only direct current was known, and it could be transmitted only a mile or so.
Finally, efficient electrical motors began to be built so that electricity could be used not only for lighting but also as a source of power for machinery, thus creating a huge demand for daytime power and putting the electric power industry on a much firmer basis than it had theretofore been as a part-time industry supplying power for lighting. Quickly electric motors found their way into factories of all kinds, replacing steam engines and sending them to the scrap heap. In 1899 electricity ran only 5 percent of the industrial machinery in the country. By 1914 it was 30 percent and in 1929, 70 percent. In Utah the first industries to convert to electricity were railroads, both innercity street railways and interurban systems, and mines. Their history is closely linked with the history of the electric power industry in Utah (just as, for example, the growth of the electric power industry in Michigan is closely connected to that of the automobile industry).
The second factor transforming the early electric power industry was the consolidation of small, individually owned stations into larger systems. In Utah that process culminated with the formation of Utah Power & Light Company.
UP&L was organized September 6, 1912, as a subsidiary of a large holding company. Electric Bond and Share Company (EBASCO) of New York, to consolidate dozens of large and small electric power companies in Utah and surrounding states. Holding companies were increasingly popular in the United States beginning in the early twentieth century and reached their peak in the 1920s. Within the utility industry they were particularly prevalent. By 1929 a group of sixteen holding companies generated over 80 percent of all electric energy in the country, and three systems accounted for over 45 percent.
The General Electric Company had organized EBASCO in 1905 to merge small, financially unstable electric companies into larger, financially secure ones, and to provide financial, management, and engineering advice to them and other companies. Utility companies required large amounts of capital, but small companies were not interesting to the investing public, and the new money required to meet the growing demand for electricity could not easily be secured. What was needed were companies large enough in service territory, volume of business, and earnings to interest investors in buying their bonds and preferred stocks.
One of EBASCO's first undertakings was the formation in 1906 of the American Power and Light Company, which then acquired the stock of a number of electric power companies in seven cities in Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania and merged all of them into the American Gas and Electric Company. The new company was large enough to command a market for its bonds and preferred stock, which were sold to provide cash to retire the bonds of the constituent companies and to pay for new plants and transmission lines. As further opportunities arose, small companies adjoining the original cities were acquired, generating stations were enlarged, and distribution lines were extended to serve neighboring communities that previously had no electric service. Acquisitions continued through the years, and eventually all the properties in each state were interconnected and merged into a single company. The interconnections were also carried across state lines. The system in Indiana was connected with that in Ohio and in turn with the one in West Virginia. By the mid-1920s the fully integrated system extended from Lake Michigan to the North Carolina border. EBASCO proceeded in the same manner throughout other parts of the country. By 1925 it owned more than 200 operating companies in thirty states, generated 14 percent of the electrical energy in the United States, and had 11 percent of the customers.
Following its formation Utah Power & Light moved quickly to acquire other companies. Within two months, on November 22, 1912, it bought Lucien L. Nunn's Telluride Power Company, which had been founded twelve years earlier to consolidate Nunn's power developments. It included five plants and served parts of southeastern Idaho, western Colorado, and northern Utah, including mines at Bingham and Eureka. Three months later, on February 7, 1913, a second company was acquired. Knight Consolidated Power, which comprised the power interests of mining king Jesse Knight and served parts of Salt Lake and Utah counties and the Tintic and Park City mining districts and included eight plants. A third acquistion followed two months later, the Idaho Power and Transportation Company, Ltd., which served southeastern Idaho and operated three plants. A fourth acquisition came in January 1915, the Utah Light and Traction Company, which operated street railway systems in Salt Lake City and Ogden, provided electricity for other purposes, and had five plants.
In addition to those large companies, UP&L also bought a number of other, mostly small enterprises that had been struggling for existence since their founding. Within two years they included Park City Light, Heat, and Power, Idaho-Utah Electric (Preston), Gem State Light and Power (Shelley), the Electric Company (Provo), Camp Floyd Electric (Mercur), Institute Electric (Bingham), Eureka Electric, Home Telephone and Electric (Davis and Weber counties). Salt Lake and Ogden Railway, High Creek Electric Light and Power (northern Utah and southern Idaho), Davis County Light and Power, Merchants Light and Power (Ogden), Bear Lake Power, and McCammon (Idaho) Power. In subsequent years it continued to acquire more. In 1916 it bought five, in 1917 three more, and in aU eventually absorbed some one hundred thirty.
Utah Power & Light did not set out simply to acquire plants and distribution systems that others had started, however. Its new properties would not continue to operate as separate, independent entities. Rather, the goal was to unify them into one large, integrated ''superpower system." In general that entailed three things: upgrading existing facilities and equipment, interconnecting all properties with extensive and elaborate transmission lines, and developing Bear Lake as a huge storage reservoir and building a series of new plants on the Bear River.
By 1922, on its tenth anniversary, Utah Power & Light had made considerable progress toward its goal. It served 205 communities in four states, had 83,000 customers, and operated forty generating plants with an installed capacity of 224,000 kilowatts. Newly built or expanded Grace, Oneida, Cove, and Wheelon plants on the Bear River provided half of that capacity. Each of the 40 plants was connected through a system of high-voltage transmission lines with a new main distribution center, the Terminal Substation, in Salt Lake City. Many other new substations had been built, and distribution lines (those that ran from substations to customers) had been upgraded and extended. Bear Lake had been developed as a storage reservoir with twenty-three miles of inlet and outlet channels that carried the entire flow of the Bear River in and out of the Icike; and at its north end the Lifton pumping plant, capable of delivering 3,000 acre-feet of water per day, had been built.
A primary concern during UP&L's first ten years was to consolidate and interconnect all of its power companies to create a large, integrated system. A second emphasis was the effort to promote the sale of electricity—to stimulate demand rather than simply respond to it, as had been the case in the past. "This is the age of electricity, with almost unlimited possibilities for the future," its sales department proclaimed in 1916. "Electricity is not the plaything or luxury of the rich, but within reach of all and has become a necessity." The company was particularly interested in increasing the use of household appliances, which had become available in the first years of the twentieth century. The electric fan made its appearance in 1901. The first commercially successful electric range arrived on the scene in 1908. A Chicago businessman produced the first electric blanket in 1912. Electric irons and toasters date from the same period. All of them, and a myriad of others, made life easier, the company emphasized, "relieving the housewife of the drudgery that has long been her lot." Because it would mean less work and more leisure, the goal of every woman should be "the complete electrification of the home."
Utah Power & Light promoted a wide variety of appliances, from the serious to the frivolous, including washing machines, electric cigar lighters, electric shaving mugs, and electric "boudoir lamps." It was particularly interested, though, in encouraging the use of electric ranges and refrigerators. Soon it decided to market as well as service them. For the next several decades, until the onset of World War II, it was in the business of selling electrical appliances directly to the consumer as well as supplying electricity to operate them. There was, company officials frankly admitted, "a complete lack of public demand for these items." Demand had to be created, and the company set out to tell customers about the benefits of electrical appliances and so to popularize their use. In their sales effort they tried to take advantage of every opportunity and use every conceivable argument. An article in a 1914 issue of the company magazine, for example, reasoned that over the course of a year, people with electric lights in their houses saved two full days of labor that would otherwise be devoted to picking up, lighting, and disposing of matches.^ When prohibition went into effect in Colorado at the end of 1915, the sales department saw an opportunity: men would now have money to spend on other things that had previously been spent on liquor. "It is up to us to get some of that money saved by his not drinking by inducing his family to avail themselves of the wonderful benefits of electricity," said a company publication.
The symbol for the campaign to increase the sale of electricity in the house was vivacious "Susan Sparks." In one advertisement she proclaimed that with her use of an electric massager, she could "deftly dodge the fearful ravages of time." In another she touted the ease of using an electric sewing machine, in a third, a curling iron, and in a fourth, an electric coffee pot.
UP&L used a variety of methods in addition to advertising to promote the use of electricity in houses. One was to place electric appliances in the public schools for use in home economics classes. Demonstrations were another way. The company's main office in Salt Lake City, for example, regularly held them. According to the woman in charge, in one instance, "A gentleman and his wife casually stopped at the demonstration table while I was preparing buckwheat cakes and coffee on a Westinghouse toaster stove and percolator. The couple were served with cakes and coffee, and they then asked for a demonstration of other appliances. Before leaving the store they purchased a Westinghouse turnover toaster, a perco, a Universal tea ball pot, a six-pound Hotpoint iron, a Royal vacuum sweeper . . . with a total bill of $90.97."1^
There were also special demonstrations for schools, churches, and community groups, and even people on the street. In the fall of 1916 the manager of the Provo office set up an electric washing machine on the sidewalk, washed clothes for passersby, and hung them up to dry on a line he had strung between poles on the street. Happily, according to the company magazine, "He was allowed to continue his work without any objection from the Police Department."
In the fall of 1912 the company announced it had available for showing two motion pictures designed to promote the benefits of electricity. The first, entitled The Power behind the Electric Button, showed how electricity was generated and distributed and how electrical appliances were made. The second was more dramatic. The Electrical Education of Mr. and Mrs. Thrifty showed a husband returning from work on sewing day to find his wife completely worn out from working all day with an old-fashioned sewing machine. That evening he read in the newspaper an advertisement citing the virtues of electricity and the next day bought his wife not only an electric sewing machine but also a vacuum cleaner, chafing dish, coffee percolator, and toaster stove. After a series of amusing incidents while the Thriftys learned to use the appliances, the story ended happily with the couple sitting down to a fine dinner. The two movies played to large audiences in cities and towns throughout Utah and the rest of Utah Power & Light's service area. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, "The tour is made in real theatrical style. An advance man sees that the inhabitants of a town are informed of the approaching event and no effort is spared in making it interesting as well as instructive. No charge is made."
As part of its promotional efforts, UP&L also held annual exhibits and demonstrations at the Utah State Fair. In 1917, for example, it leased 10,000 square feet of floor space and "demonstrated various commercial and domestic labor-saving devices." Thousands of pieces of pastry, cake, and cookies were prepared and sold "at a nominal price." The exhibit also provided vocal and instrumental music by the Salt Lake Song Shop. All instruments used were electrically operated. In all, an estimated 100,000 people visited the display.
In a similar vein the company each year participated in national Electric Week. In 1916 it distributed 150,000 pieces of literature explaining the uses to which electricity could be put, created elaborate window displays in each of its offices, offered a 10 percent discount on the purchase of all electrical appliances, gave free candy and cookies to anyone who attended its demonstrations, and sponsored an Electric Ball.
The results of the effort to promote the use of electricity were impressive. In 1913 UP&L's sales department generated more than $165,000 in new business. That grew to $287,000 in 1914 and to nearly $1 million in 1917. Merchandise sales showed a similar increase. They totaled almost $100,000 in 1913 and nearly $500,000 just four years later. In 1913 UP&L sold 38 electric ranges. In 1915 the number increased to 664, more than any other electric company in the United States, and in 1916 totaled almost 2,000.
During Utah Power & Light's first ten years the use of electricity by industry also increased substantially. At its founding in 1912, mines and street and interurban railroads were the main industries using electricity. A decade later the use of electricity in all branches of industry was the rule rather than the exception, and each year brought more and more industrial contracts. In 1915, for example, UP&L contracted to supply electrical power to the following enterprises: the Eagle and Blue Bell mines in Eureka, the Hoover Brothers' flour mill in Provo, the Star Canning and Evaporating Company in Clinton, the Daly-Judge Mine in Park City, the Lincoln sugar factory near Idaho Falls, a cement factory and flour mill in Corinne, the Knight Woolen Mills in Provo, the Ogden Packing and Provision Company, the Inland Grain Co., the Kaysville Brick Company, and the Smithfield Roller Mills.
During the same period electrification of agricultural operations in Utah also made significant strides. It was in the decades after the 1890s that Utah's agriculture shifted from subsistence farming to commercial farming, and in that evolution electricity was important. It was used for a variety of purposes in both farming and ranching: to light houses and outbuildings; to run electric motors of all kinds for machinery such as grinders and grain elevators; and to operate irrigation pumps, which was the most extensive early use, given the importance of irrigation to farming in Utah. In 1922 UP&L estimated that electric pumps were providing water for 115,000 acres of land in Utah that produced crops with an annual value of $6 million.
While promoting a variety of new uses for electricity, Utah Power & Light continued to emphasize its use for indoor and outdoor lighting. In 1913 an estimated 15 million candlepower was used in its service area. By 1922 that had increased nearly five times to 71.6 million. The most widely publicized lighting project was Salt Lake City's "White Way," a new system for the central business district that for the first time provided really adequate street lighting in Salt Lake.
White Ways spread rapidly among American cities after the development in 1907 of the incandescent tungsten-filament lamp, which was far brighter than previous electric lights. White Ways were intended to be ornamental as well as practical and efficient, and considerable attention was given to such things as post design, the concealment of wires underground and within posts, cluster lighting, spacing and post height, and providing illumination to the upper facades of buildings. Ssdt Lake, like most cities, had twin reasons for building White Ways: a realization that business would prosper from the increased illumination and a belief that such lighting had advertising value. "Well-lighted streets are indicative of progressiveness and enterprise and add to the attractiveness of a city," one booster said.
The company also promoted new kinds of lighting: flood lighting for public buildings and monuments, such as the Brigham Young Monument in Salt Lake City, which was lighted in the spring of 1917; night lighting of parks and outdoor sports facilities; and electric signs. "Electric signs are the most striking and dignified ad medium in use today," the company noted. They were "simple, cheap, and more effective than traditional painted signs." It pointed as an example to the electric sign installed on the building of the Royal Baking Company, at 232 South Main in Sak Lake City in the faU of 1912 "as a striking demonstration of the possibilities of electric advertising." The sign, "standing high above the surrounding buildings, carries with it such a strong attracting power that few people, whose business or pleasure take them out of doors at night, fail to receive its message, not once, but many times."
In general Utah Power & Light thought night lighting of aU kinds needed to be greatly increased. It would reduce "immoral" conduct ("Lack of Illumination in Liberty Park is Aid to Immorality" the headline of an ad in the company magazine proclaimed) and crime:
As the company saw it, with increased lighting night would become safe and convenient for leisure activities. Promenades, wtndowshopping, sports, and park use would enliven city evenings. Access to leisure activity at night would be a boon to working people who labored six days a week but enjoyed evening sports and recreation. In general any daytime activity could also be undertaken at night with relative safety and convenience. While the city's bustle might calm in the evenings and street lights might dim in the wee hours, cities would never again slumber in pervasive darkness. That was the message Utah Power & Light sought to sell.
By the early 1920s the modern age of electricity was firmly established in Utah. One company supplied most of the state's electricity and was on its way to becoming one of Utah's largest corporations. Consumption of electricity had increased dramatically. Industry was the chief user, followed by residential users, commercial users, and cities and towns. No longer an expensive luxury of limited application and questionable reliability, electricity had taken its place as an integral part of people's lives.
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