MUSEUM CORNER June 2022
Before 1910: The Bedford Light, Heat and Power service cart and employees are shown in front of their shop, which was located on the north side of 15th Street between J and K Streets. Col. A. C. Voris was the president as well as president of The Citizens Trust Company which was located next door. The Voris family home became the first house in Bedford to be wired for electricity.
Image from the Auale Chamberlain Judah Collection, Lawrence County Museum.
Let there be light
By Becky Buher, printed in the Times-Mail newspaper June 9, 2022
In the early days of our community, it was very dark outside with the only light coming from the moon as it waxed and waned throughout the month. Candles and coal oil lights could be seen flickering inside windows at night, but when people had to go outside, they usually carried coal oil lanterns in order to move about safely.
In 1869, Bedford town officials (Alexander H. Dunihue, E. D. Pearson, James C. Carlton, trustees; M. N. Messick, clerk-treasurer; Erastus Ikerd, assessor and marshal) decided the courthouse square downtown was too dark at night, and it should have public lighting.
Some 60 years later, former Lawrence County Museum curator, Zora Askew, wrote that the public had rejoiced during the 1869 holiday season when coal oil streetlamps were erected at each of the four corners of the public square.
Askew wrote, “On the tall pole was the square light chamber. In the center was a bowl filled with coal oil and a big brass fixture for the extra size wick. It was the marshal’s duty to take care of the lights, and it must have been a very auspicious moment when Marshal Ikerd climbed the ladder, opened the glass door and applied the match to the wick, turned it up to the right height for a steady flame to endure, and the rays shone out through the glass windows and cast their mellow glow a long distance.”
Two blocks from the square, the Women’s Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church decided they, too, needed a streetlight. Somehow, the women found a second-hand streetlight, raised $12 needed for purchase and installation, and the streetlight was soon ready for their evening services.
A crowd turned out to see it, but installers had not considered that between two trees, the light could be blocked. When the streetlight was turned on, light rays could barely be seen. Askew wrote, “Needless to say the light was moved and for many years the church door was revealed on prayer meeting and Sunday nights as a beacon to the light of the gospel that could be heard within.”
Newer technology became available a decade later when Thomas Edison demonstrated his new light bulb invention in Menlo Park, New Jersey, in 1879.
Askew continued, “Along in the 1880s when light was in its infancy, a phenomena the magnitude of which could not be understood but challenging the awe of the most sanguine that some mysterious power was indeed being harnessed to serve the needs of man as the various results of the experiments were exploited—called electricity.”
Local businessman, T. V. Thornton, saw this as an opportunity and had the first electric light plant created in the city.
Askew reported, “It was just twenty years from the time the first four [coal oil] streetlights were installed that T. V. Thornton started the ball rolling for the most modern street lighting, that of the new electric arc lights [that were] being installed in the larger cities.
“In response to his negotiations with the Thompson-Houston Electric Co. of Lynn Mass., a dapper young man working in the Cincinnati, Ohio, office was sent here, an electrician who made such an impression on Mr. Thornton that he was prevailed upon to remain here and install the plant.
“The old hollow on East Fourteenth Street was chosen as the site of the first electric light plant and John Bell was the young electrician sent here and retained by Mr. Thornton to install the first electric light plant.”
The plant started running in April 1890, was incorporated for $2,500, and Judge W. H. Martin secured a 40-year franchise from the city.
The arc streetlights were made exclusively by the Thompson-Houston Electric Co. and installed on thirty-foot-high poles. The first light placement was on each corner of the public square, and all four streetlights were turned on at once. The operation cost was a flat rate of 25 cents a night.
Of course, interest in lighting for businesses and individual residences soon followed. Plans were made to use multiple series incandescent lights from the Westinghouse Electric Co. The first house wired for electricity in Bedford was the home of Col. A. C. Voris and Antoinette Voris, Thirteenth and K Streets.
Source: Zora Askew article, Bedford Daily Times, Oct. 10, 1931.