Henry J. Rogers, the owner of the Appleton Paper and Pulp Company, was convinced in the summer of 1882 that an electric power plant would provide a unique investment opportunity, and together with some of the city’s other investors went ahead and purchased the necessary equipment from Samuel Insull, one of Edison’s assistants. Edison himself was already constructing a larger plant in New York City, which opened for operation on September 4, 1882. The newly-formed Appleton Edison Light Co., however, began its operation just a couple of weeks earlier on August 20th, giving it the distinction of being the first electric power plant to operate anywhere in the world.
The plant began as one “K” type dynamo in a wooden shed of the Appleton Paper and Pulp Co., powered by the company’s Fox River water wheel. It produced enough electricity to light 250 incandescent light bulbs, each of “sixteen candlepower” (approximately 50 watts).
Initially, lights were installed in the Appleton Paper and Pulp Co. factory, a second paper factory nearby, and Rogers’ house (which still stands in Appleton today, known as Hearthstone):
Hearthstone, therefore, has the distinction of being the first residence in the world to be lit by electric light. Inside the house, one can still see the original chandeliers and the odd brass light switches used to operate the lights, rather different from the switches we are familiar with today:
The early operations of this revolutionary plant were not perfect, as one might expect. The mechanisms for regulating the flow of electric power, and even meters for measuring the power, had not yet been invented, and only came into use later in the 1880s, causing some early mishaps as the engineers sometimes overestimated how much power they were sending out and burned out the light bulbs. The equipment itself was much more primitive than we are familiar with today; most of the apparatus involved were made of wood, all the wiring was copper, often uncovered, and the light bulbs themselves contained bamboo filaments (something Edison himself had discovered to be better than his initial carbonized thread). The plant had some early financial troubles, due in part to these mechanical troubles, and also possibly due to undercharging its customers, since no one had a good idea of what might reasonably be charged for electric power. Mill customers were charged $2.00 per lamp per month (if the lamp was burned 15 hours each night), and residential customers paid $7.00 per lamp per year. The sixteen candlepower bulbs were $1.40 each, provided by the company.
The company did work through those early financial troubles, and expanded its customer base to other factories around the Fox River, and eventually to more residences throughout Appleton. Looking through the Sanborn Maps at the Wisconsin Historical Society Archives allows one to trace the company over the following years. The 1883 map merely lists “one dynamo” in the storage shed of the Appleton Paper and Pulp Company. By the time of the next map, 1886, the “Edison Electric Light Co.” had its own building containing 4 dynamos, a workshop and an office. It was located on a flume of the U.S. Canal just south of the Fox River, not far from the Appleton Boot & Shoe Manufacturing Company. It remained in the same location in 1891 (now with 7 dynamos), and is listed as running “night and day” (in its early days, it ran only at night, for that was when illumination was most needed). In 1895 the company had expanded out to another temporary location in the former Appleton Manufacturing Company, in addition to the site along the U.S. Canal, and by then what is now Main Hall of Lawrence University is listed as having electric lights. The 1901 map comes after the company’s bankruptcy in 1896, after which it was re-purchased by one of the initial investors and renamed the “Appleton Electric Light And Power Co.” It has three locations: the original site on the U.S. Canal (now expanded), a “Run at Night Only” facility along the Fox River, and a third location away from the river, southeast of State Street and Fisk Street, which was powered by steam from coal-fired boilers. By this time many of the larger buildings throughout the city had at least some electric lighting, as did a growing number of residences.
In spite of the rough start, the plant’s investors persisted, and thanks in no small part to their willingness to take a step into the future, the use of electric power spread rapidly throughout the United States. Improvements in the industry came almost as rapidly as the mishaps, and so what began as a novelty source of light in Appleton, Wisconsin, grew into the cheap, bright, steady source of illumination that we still use today.
I think I’ll close with the long-standing motto of Lawrence University (my own alma mater), which now strikes me as appropriate in more ways than one:
(All images courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society. I would like to thank the Wisconsin Historical Society for the use of their Archives and images.)
[Post written by Audra Hilse.]
Those switches are strange indeed.
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