A new city in the age of electrification, Spokane was particularly suited to the transforming power of electricity. Railroads had played a central role in the west, promoting new settlement and expanding an economy that silver, gold, copper, lead, wheat, and timber flowed into. However, power was needed to fully capitalize on the new economy and Spokane had a resource. An 1890 Electrical World article said it best, "The remarkable electrical developments in the far west are nowhere more strikingly exhibited than at Spokane Falls. The rapid and phenomenal growth of this city finds its parallel in the growth of its electrical industries, and this is undoubtedly due in great measure to the magnificent water power that the city possesses."
A handful of men were uniquely situated at this crossroads of economic opportunity, technological development, and access to water power. And like the railroads, water power will become entwined with government – securing rights of way, subsidizing, regulating, protecting – and eventually fusing into a public utility.

The Incandescent Light Bulb



1878: Edison creates his prototype incandescent light bulb: a thin strip of paper, attached to wires, enclosed in a vacuum inside a glass bulb. When electricity flowed into the paper "filament," it heated up, and glowed.

1882: Edison and partners form the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York, bringing electric light to parts of Manhattan. But progress was slow. Most American will still light their homes with gas light and candles for another fifty years. In 1925, only half of all homes in the U.S. will have electric power.
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Learn more about Edison at the NPS Thomas Edison National Historic Site.

1885-Spokane


The first electricity comes to the Spokane Falls when George Fitch buys one of the generators – an arc Brush dynamo – from the steamship S.S. Columbia built by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company and launched in 1890 operating between Portland and San Francisco.  On September 2, 1885, Fitch applies and is approved for a franchise from the Spokane Falls town council to furnish electricity and install 10 arc lights in the business district.  An 11th light is added on the north side of the river. 
Electric arc lights had harsh and brilliant light and were best used for public areas.  The use of Brush electric arc lights spread quickly.  The Scientific American reported in 1881 that the system was being used with around 6,000 lights throughout the U.S. 

March 22, 1886-Seattle


Edison agents, Sidney Z. Mitchell and F. H. Sparling turn on first electric lightbulb in the west in Seattle.  "Instantly the room was made brilliant with a clear white light," (cite).  The first central station system for incandescent electric light west of the Rocky Mountains is started when Seattle purchases 250 incandescent bulbs from Sydney Z. Mitchell, representing Thomas Edison, J.P. Morgan, and George Westinghouse.

1886-Spokane


New homes and businesses are built in early 1886 and wooden sidewalks are completed around downtown. A group of Spokane Falls businessmen buy out Fitch and the Spokane Falls Electric Lights and Power Company:
1.    Frank R. Moore - Pres., First National Bank....
2.    Horace L. Cutter - Cashier, First National Bank...
3.    William Pettet - xx
4.    Fred D. Chamberlin - Chamberlin & Bros. & Co., commission and produce merchandise
5.    J. D. Sherwood - Sherwood & Dempsie, wholesale/retail men's furnishing goods
6.    Harry M. Hoyt - Attorney

Sydney Z. Mitchell convince these businessmen to invest in 1,200 bulbs, they agree to only use Edison-patented equipment, and pay the Edison Company 30% of revenues as royalties.  A new dynamo 30 kilowatts capacity is ordered, they lease a site for water power development on the north side of the river, and install the first generator at the Post Street Bridge at the falls.
 

1887-Spokane



In order to expand, the directors of the Spokane Falls Electric Light Power Co. seek financing from investors with the Edison Electric Illuminating Company New York. New machinery is ordered with part cash and part stock and Spokane Falls Electric Light and Power Co. is reorganized and opens business as the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Spokane Falls.


Twenty-six year old John B. Fisken arrives in Spokane from Scotland in 1887 and begins employment with Edison Electric Illuminating Co. as superintendent. Fisken will be a fixed feature for over 50 years in the growth of Spokane’s electrical power, through its transformation in a series of private business ventures and expansion into a publicly held utility.

Membership in the Electrical Workers Local No. 73, shown in this undated photo, included workers from the Edison Electric Illuminating Company, Spokane Street Railway Company, and Inland Telephone and Telegraph Company.

Spokane businessman A. M. Cannon organizes to develop the upper falls taping into 10% of the estimated 30,000 HP potential of the river. He forms the Spokane Falls Water Power Co. ready to compete with Edison Electric Illuminating. 

1888-Spokane


Within the first year, Edison Electric Illuminating has insufficient output to meet demand. With the financial backing of Sydney Z. Mitchell and Edison Electric New York investors, a new plant is built with four times the capacity. For the first time 24 hour service is offered, lines extend to residences, and electricity powers the presses at the Spokane Chronicle newspaper.  

A November 1888 headline in The Morning Review Daily newspaper proclaimes, "Unrivaled: Spokane Leads All Other Cities of its Size."
                                                                        Read the entire article

1889-Spokane


This is a year of struggles for Edison Electric Illuminating who is unable to secure needed financing from east coast investors. Meanwhile on March 13, ten stockholders authorizing $1 million form the Washington Water Power Company (WWP). The authorized capital is increased one-and-a -half times with bonds to $500 million. 
The main stockholders:
1.    Frank R. Moore, President - past pres. Spokane Falls Electric Light & Power
2.    J. D. Sherwood - xx, Spokane Falls Electric Light & Power
3.    Herbert Bolster - ??
4.    W. S. Norman - ??
5.    Cyrus S. Burns - ??

WWP President, Frank “Rockwood” Moore is past president of the First National Bank (with the city's founder, James Glover), partner in the Lucky Chance Mine, organizer of 2 electric street cars, and owns vast properties south of the downtown area. WWP acquires a large flourmill on the north side of the river. 

The first resident engineer was Henry Herrick. The first assignment of the newly formed company was the planning and building of the Monroe Street Power Station.


FIRE! On August 4 fire destroys 32 blocks of the business district. 
Spokane the day after the fire, Aug. 5, 1889.
With a population of 20,000 and a scorched business district, Spokane begins rebuilding immediately. Electric poles and wires are toast but the Monroe Street Power Station is saved. With a huge demand for electric power, the local power companies work to their maximum capacity but barely keep up.  

News of the fire spread. Te Aroha News in New Zealand report the loss in the following month.
                                                                       Read the entire article

1890's-Spokane


April 11, 1890 SF Daily Chronicle
In April of 1890, eight months after the fire, a correspondent from Indiana visits Spokane. His sanguine descriptions are printed in the Spokane Falls Daily Chronicle. (Left)

As 1890 comes to an end, the Spokane Falls Daily Chronicle extolls the virtues of the city.

“The wealth and prosperity of this city, its marvelous and unparalleled growth in the past to its immense and inexhaustible water power. To govern a power of such magnitude, under some circumstances, might baffle engineering skill, but here by the numerous natural divisions made by islands, the control of the vast power is rendered comparatively easy. The power sites are distributed over a large area, affording ample space for mills and factories, and Spokane is destined to become the largest manufacturing and milling city of the Pacific northwest. Through the heart of the city flows the Spokane river, which offers thirty thousand available horse power…”  (SF Daily Chronicle, Dec 30, 1890)




Birdseye map of Spokane Falls eleven months after the Great Fire.

WWP acquires Edison Electric Illuminating in 1891. The company’s operations grow and extend from Spokane to neighboring Idaho and the Coeur d’Alene mines.

1900s-Spokane

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How the Incandescent Light Bulb and Electricity Transform a Frontier Town

In the late 19th century, electrification was transforming American cities. Electricity, along with railroads and the telegraph, were reshaping the American landscape. Contemporaries saw these as emblematic of intellectualism, nationalism, and civilization. These were the symbols of American progress, destiny made manifest. John Gast popularized attitudes in his 1863 painting American Progress, where Columbia advances west, flanked by the railroad, a coil of telegraph wire over one arm, and bringing light from the east behind her.