MP Electric Light Department - 1909

ELECTRICITY

Posted By: Pat Ryan White (email)
Date: 5/6/2018 at 06:04:30

ELECTRIC LIGHT DEPARTMENT – MOUNT PLEASANT

It is understood that the City Council will this evening order all day electric service. If this is so, it means a good deal to the 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 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 the orders for wiring. If all the lights now wired would 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 necessary very soon, if the demand continues. In the meantime, the earnings of the plant are paying for all costs of operations, all repairs, all extensions, is lighting the city free, and shouldering too much of the cost of operations of the water department. It is seldom that a municipal plant scores such a success, but we give credit to the plant here, although we never dreamed that it would become a financial success.

[“Mount Pleasant Daily News”, January 11, 1909]