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Chase County Kansas Historical
Sketches
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History of Light Company
Back in 1906 Walter Austin, who had been studying electricity by
correspondence at nights and also having a very successful career as school
teacher during the day time, decided he would like to string out for himself
in this new and then almost unknown field of electricity. It was a gamble,
but Walter Austin was the son of a pioneering father, who had come to this
country in the trying pioneer times to work at his trade in carpentering on
the mill that once stood east of Matfield Green. And it was there that
Walter was born in the midst of a blizzard without the blessings of a
doctor.
In 1887 when electricity was first beginning to be used anywhere in the
world commercially, Chase County was not far behind. A franchise was
granted in Cottonwood Falls for a light company. But nothing came of this
venture until about 1893, when two youngsters, Lawrence Gustin and J J
Comer, who ere mainly backed by M P Strail, started a light plant in
one-half of Mr. Strail's wagon-making shop in the building now occupied by
the Post office.
These two youngsters, running mostly on nerve and a little of Mr.
Strails money, built a generator and purchased a one cylinder steam engine
from the Tweedale and Parker Rock Crusher and Stone Quarry east of Strong
City.
This company had a unique feature, in that it ran only after dark.
Financial difficulties soon wrote finis to this company and it had been
through two sets of hands. And for several years electricity in Cottonwood
Falls was no more.
In the winter of 1904, or spring of 1905, W.G. Smith from Boliver,
Missouri, came here and with the Johnson Brothers, Elmer and Bruce formed a
company, that was the forerunner of the present company. They purchased
some equipment and started building their plant. Their wires ran to the
residential district as well as the business houses and although they did
not operate a part of the daylight hours their service was very satisfactory
for those times. It was after the start of this Company, that Walter
Austin, who had more to do with electrical expansion of this county than any
other individual, became interested an began studying it. In 1906, he, with
Clay Shaft purchased the Johnson Brothers interest and it was soon after
they took over the management of the company.
Additions were made to the
plant, down by the river, the twenty-four hour service was inaugurated under
the name of Home Light and Power Company. This company also had a good by
product made by the utilization of waste steam by using it to make ice in
the adjoining ice plant, that was built originally for a flour mill. Walter
Austin worked many hours a day with his new company in its early years, to
get it started on a strong foundation.
In 1918, when electricity and the
Home Light and Power Company had become permanent fixture, the name of the
company was changed to Inter County Electric Company. Many voluntary
reductions in rates, were made during the thirty years that this company
served this territory. The first rate was 12.5 cents per kilowatt. This
was gradually reduced and people bought more electrical appliances to use in
their homes and stores.
Fred Austin came to this company in 1907, as plant manager and
superintendent of all the distribution system. Another familiar sight at
the light and ice plant was Frank Bowlby, who was almost a permanent fixture
there for twenty-four years. Fred continued on with the new owners in the
same capacity. In 1923 when his lease on the mill site ran out, Mr. Austin built a modern ice pant on the main street of Cottonwood Falls and started
buying his electricity from Kansas Electric Power Company of Emporia,
Kansas, by way of a long high-line, from their substation to this town. At
that time he was granted a franchise from the town of Saffordville and
established a distribution center to sell electricity. In 1930 his company
got a franchise for the town of Elmdale and built and maintained a high-line
as well as a distribution center there.
With Walter Austin's death, April 3, 1935, his son Harold Austin took
over the management of the company, but he contracted pneumonia a few months
later, February 23 1936 and died. After his death Helen M Austin, Wife of
Walter Austin conducted the business of the Inter-County Electric Company,
and on Dec 02 1936, Helen M Austin, a widow; Frances Austin, wife of Harold
Austin, Elizabeth A Myler and J L Myler, her husband sold to the Kansas
Electric Power Company, the light plant.
It is now operated by the name The
Kansas Power and Light Company. On Dec 07 1945 Helen M Austin et al sold to
F B Jensen and Ernest Jensen the ice Plant. During the year 1954 Harry W
Buffington and Laura M Buffington purchased the ice plant and building
which they now own in 1966.
by Lorna Marvin
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