#TBT: Corpus Christi was electrified in 1890
In 1890, the lights came on in Corpus Christi. That’s when the city of about 3,000 citizens got their first power plant, providing electricity just eight years after the first homes in the U.S. began receiving electric lights.
The owners were Dr. Alfred G. Heaney (who later owned the first telephone company and the second automobile in town; apparently he liked new technology), Tito P. Rivera and John Stayton. The poles were installed in February and by April the city had light. But only at night, the company didn’t provide electricity during the day. The power plant was located in a corrugated iron building on Water Street. The poles also held the first telephone wires, owned by the same three investors in the electric company (Dr. Heaney’s telephone number was 1, and his son’s 2). The Caller weighed in:
“The City Council have wisely decided to light our streets with electricity instead of the ancient oil lamps now in use — which only serve to make the darkness visible — and to that end have closed a contract with the company for 70 lights.“With our streets, business houses, and residences illuminated with electric lamps, our city will be a thing of beauty, Empress of the Gulf. Ere the winter visitor takes his departure electric lighting will be an accomplished fact. Corpus Christi is emerging from darkness and sloth and before another year passes will have taken her stand in the dazzling light of commercial push and energy.”
But financial troubles led to the company being placed in receivership with local banker Perry Doddridge. In 1900, Doddridge resigned as trustee and banker E.A. Born took over. The company reorganized in 1907 as the Corpus Christi Electric and Ice Company, producing ice delivery in addition to the electricity. But it was still only provided in the evenings. Locals wanted 24-hour electric service, so a competing company opened, the Peoples Light Company, owned by John G. Kenedy, George Blucher and John Pease. Both companies had around 300 customers each.
When the first electric streetcars arrived in 1910, owner Daniel Hewitt went with Peoples Light Co. as his power source. He sold the venture a year later and the new owners, the Heinley brothers of Denver, added three additional cars to the original four operating streetcars and changed the name to the Corpus Christi Street and Interurban Railway. With the new additions, the current power plant was insufficient for their needs so they built their own power plant.
More: #TBT: Downtown Corpus Christi's bluff balustrade more than 100 years old
The Heinley brothers sold out in 1914, and the three power plants in town were all bought by a group from Philadelphia, Newberger, Henderson and Loeb. The new company changed the name to the Corpus Christi Railway and Light Company, closing two of the plants but upgrading and expanding the old Corpus Christi Electric and Ice plant with modern diesel engines.
The system trucked along, until the 1919 hurricane. The storm that inundated downtown and North Beach unsurprisingly also knocked out the town’s power plant. It took a week for repairs to get partial electricity back in service, but the company went into receivership again due to the losses from the storm. A new company, Morrison and McCall, stepped up in 1921 and began refurbishing the newly purchased system, but the plant suffered fire damages and had to operate at a limited capacity.
The new company persevered, upgrading to a steam turbine engine and expanding the ice plant to 40-ton capacity, and by the time the company sold to Central Power and Light Company in 1925, the power plant served 1,800 customers. Not bad for just 35 years of the newfangled electric service.
Allison Ehrlich writes about things to do in South Texas and has a weekly Throwback Thursday column on local history.
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: #TBT: Corpus Christi's electric service began in 1890
