Photo Description
Brooks Hawley note: Suspect this is when Sumpter Light and Power was first capitalized for $50,000 in April 1900. An item in newspaper in June 1900 tells of a new plant, 150 H. P. Corliss engine, two 150 H. P boilers to run an arc dynamo for 20 street lights and dynamo for 2,000 16-candle power lights. The very first electric light plant was built on the south side of Auburn St. by George W. Sage and was first going for the 4th of July 1897. It was evidently run by a steam engine and did not run during the day. This picture would be of the next electric light plant which was on Magnolia St. west of the river. R. A. Strahorn built it in the summer of 1903 but likely was not finished until the spring of 1904. It was a water powered plant but had auxiliary steam power as this picture is of the steam plant, with the steam engine at the far end of the room. They bragged that this plant furnished day current too. There was evidently a separate circuit for street lights for the early street lights wer arc lights. This was quite an adequate plant for the town with a good wooden building. It however was in the way for dredging for No. 2 dredge, which started upstream from the smelter in October 1915, so the next location was up the Bourne road where the remains of the brick power house still stands (1962). That plant was only water power, but the main line was down from Bourne, as now, to run the dredges, so if they had troubles they could switch to the main line, and so by 1949 they quit the little power plant and stayed on the main line. That plant ran without anyone staying with it. The Rock Creek power plant was also started in 1904 and the Fremont plant started in 1908. The plate on second machine says "Edison Machine Works, Builders, Schenectady, N. Y., 6."
Text courtesy of the Baker County Library website
