Spokane Electric: 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.

How the Incandescent Light Bulb and Electricity Transform a Frontier Town

In the late 19^th 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.

About Spokane, Washington

The Spokane River, and its spectacular series of falls, sustained Native American tribes for centuries. In the 1810s, the Spokane River served an important post for fur traders, both British and American. White settlers were attracted to the river and began settling around the falls of the Spokane River in the 1870s. James Glover, often labeled as the city’s founding father, filed the first town plat in 1878 and enthusiastically promoted the city and his business interests for forty years.

The Washington Territorial legislature granted a city charter and Spokane Falls was official, incorporated in 1881. The 1880s were a boom period for the Pacific Northwest. Three Washington Territory towns competed for prominence. In 1880, Walla Walla, population 3,588, was the largest city barely beating out Seattle’s population of 3,533. Coming in third was Spokane with a population of 350 but that was followed by tremendous growth. Mining booms in nearby northern Idaho in 1883 and north into Canada, farmers settling the fertile Palouse to the south, and abundant forest for lumbering, made Spokane Falls the major center of a new region – the inland Northwest. As railroads looked to connect Chicago and Minneapolis to Seattle, Spokane became a hub for 3 major railroads.

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