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Show LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Cditon My Little granddaughter heard that I worked on the first electric elec-tric power plant in Cedar City and wanted the history of the undertaking, so I thought it might be Interesting to some of your .readers. It is 53 years ago that the first electric lights were turned on for the holidays, which was quite a thrill for the parties in the old ward hall. The story is as follows: A company was organized to build a hydro electric plant, with Lehl W. Jones, J. G. Pace, Jod Jones, David Bulloch and othrs. whom I do not recall. They! started early in 1907 to construct1 a small power house of cut stone, which was built to the south end of the red mountain, on a small delta on the north side of the canyon about 600 feet west of the present steam plant (all that remains of the small delta is what the highway crosses, the rest was later washed away in one of the big floods). The company Immediately started to dig a canal on the nortn side of Coal Creek, beginning begin-ning on the hill east of the red mountain about 800 fet north--west of the present plant. The canal followed a grade east ap- proximately one and one-fourth miles to diversion point in the creek. 1 The work was done mostly with picks and shovels, except shooting two or three tunnels. One wooden flume across Salt Creek Canyon, and one steel pipe from the west end of the power house to provide the pressure for t!:e Pelton Water wheel. The sad part of the story was that when the water was turned into the canal the gypsum melted melt-ed and the banks slipped down the hill so there was a power house and generator ready to go but no power. So Lehl came to me to inquire if I thought his 110 horsepower steam engine with which I had been plowing would pull the dynamo. dy-namo. I said it sure would and he instructed me to take the engine en-gine to the plant, which I did. That engine was used to operate the outfit from December 1907 until the spring of '1908 when jthey got the canal to hold water. At that time Coal Creek sup-plied sup-plied plenty of water to operate the plant and also the old flour mill lower down the canyon. At first there was nothing used but lights until later In the winter win-ter people began to get flat irons and a few small motors. This is the story of electric power in Cedar City In the early stages. OWEN MATHESON. |