USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > The city of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922, Vol. I > Part 41
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The board of aldermen again voted in favor of the gas and naphtha method, but the city council, which then constituted an upper house of the city legis- lative body, amended the resolution so as to provide that Woodward Avenue, from Adams Avenue to the river, and Jefferson Avenue from Third to Brush, should be lighted by electricity. The amendment was concurred in, and the Brush company placed in this district twenty-four electric lights, displacing 116 gas lamps. The contrast between this section of the city and others was so marked that the next year, 1SS4, the Brush Company was awarded the contract for lighting the whole city, agreeing "to erect seventy-two towers, six not less than 104 feet in height, employing 300 are lamps of 2,000 candle power each, including ten lights to be distributed at certain points in the City Hall and Central Market building."
In one respect the company went beyond its contract, for the tower in front of the city hall was about one hundred and ninety feet high, and that at the postoffice corner on Griswold Street was 172 feet. There was some complaint afterwards that the tower lamps "lighted the heavens but not the streets." Nevertheless, they were popular and they were showy. To one approaching the city, especially by water, the appearance of these brilliant clusters of lights glinting over the city was exceedingly striking. They gave Detroit the reputa-
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tion, through a long period, of being the best lighted city in the country. They were in use to some extent for over thirty years, but as improvements were made in arm and mast lighting, the towers were gradually displaced.
The contract was let to the Brush Electric Light Company from year to year until 1890, when that company was under-bid by the Detroit Electric Light & Power Company, organized in 1SS9 by William B. Morgan, George H. Hammond, Jr., Joseph B. Moore, Andrew Hair, G. E. Fisher, W. H. Fitz- gerald, George M. Vail and others. The latter company was not able to make an arrangement for use of the towers of the former, but had to build new ones, so that for several years following on many of the street corners the city was treated to the sight of two towers diagonally opposite each other, one with lights and the other without. During the period of private lighting the num- ber of street lamps increased from 24 to 1,279. The annual cost per light varied from $129 to $240.
BEGINNING OF MUNICIPAL LIGHTING
Frequent complaints about the service, the varying cost and the feeling that the city might sometime be at the mercy of a combination between the two companies lent force to the agitation that Mayor Pingrce commenced in 1890 in favor of a municipally owned plant. His recommendations bore fruit and the legislature of 1893 passed an act providing for the appointment of a board of six public lighting commissioners, providing that the city might contract for the lighting of the streets for any period not exceeding three years, or that it might purchase lands or erect buildings, and direct the commissioners to establish a plant for public lighting, but forbidding it to engage in private or commercial lighting, and requiring also that, before establishing a plant, the question should be submitted to the vote of the electors.
In accordance with this act commissioners were appointed and the ques- tion was submitted at the election April 3, 1893. The vote was 15,282 in favor of the plan and 1,245 against. Following this the council authorized the issue of $300,000 in bonds, land was purchased at the foot of Randolph Street and a commencement was made on the present public lighting plant. It provides for lighting the streets, parks and boulevards, the public school houses and all other municipal buildings. Its street equipment at the time of its latest report included eighty-eight miles of conduits, 1,656 miles of copper wire strung no 34,777 poles. It had a total of 10,375 arc lights in operation with a record for the year of 22,672,250 hours at the switchboard and a cash cost of operation of $432,556.
THE EDISON PLANT
In the diversity and magnitude of its operations the Detroit Edison Com- pany far outranks the Public Lighting Plant. Its history, together with that of its predecessors to whose business it succeeded is, in brief, as follows: The Edison Illuminating Company was organized April 15, 1886, for the purpose, among other things, of operating the Edison system of direct current lighting and power. It began in November, 1SS6, to deliver current through an under- ground network of tubes serving the central business area of the city. The direct-current service was later extended northward, covering an area, hav- ing Woodward Avenue as its center line, approximately four miles long and one mile wide.
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The Peninsular Electric Light Company was formed on June 17, 1898, as a reorganization of a company of the same name incorporated June 16, 1891, which was the successor of the Brush Electric Light Company. This com- pany began in September, 1881, to operate a series of arc-lighting circuits connected to lamps hung outside of stores on lower Woodward Avenue. In 1883 it contracted with the city for street lighting according to the Brush system. In 1891 the Peninsular Electric Light Company, succeeding the Brush Company, began the supply of incandescent lighting by alternating cur- rents. In 1898, the Peninsular Electric Light Company, as reorganized, came under the same management as the Edison company and began the extension of its lines, supplying single-phase and three-phase alternating current for all purposes throughout the urban area and into adjacent villages; the Edison company continuing to serve the central district with direct current.
In 1903 the Detroit Edison Company was incorporated under the laws of New York for the purpose, among other things, of engaging in the manu- facture, distribution and sale of electricity in the City of Detroit and elsewhere. Under this authority it absorbed the two companies mentioned, together with some minor interests, and has expanded its operations through three different developments, the Detroit electric properties, the Eastern Michigan electric properties and the rights of certain steam-heating properties, namely, the Central Heating Plant, a subsidiary company. Under the first of these it serves the City of Detroit with commercial lighting and power, and with the second it renders the same service in the cities of Monroe, Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, Mount Clemens and Marine City and numerous villages in the intervening territory. The electric service covers an area of 740 square miles with a popu- lation of a million and a quarter. In the outside cities mentioned it supplies factory power, and lights the streets as well as household and business places. In these, as well as in Port Huron and Pontiac, it supplies power for the local electric railways. In Detroit it supplies all the lighting except that done by the municipal and private plants, supplies sixty per cent of the factories with power, and furnishes a large part of the current of the electric railway system.
For supplying the current the company has extensive water power devel- oped on the Huron River, and power plants in the Delray and Connor's Creek districts of Detroit. The output of the Detroit power houses alone in 1917 was 672,200,600 kilowatt hours. Ten years earlier it was just about one-eleventh as large. The property of the company is valued at $65,000,000. The new service building, ten stories in height and costing $2,500,000, located on Sec- ond Avenue between Beech and Elizabeth, was occupied early in 1921. In 1920 the company took over the electric lighting plants in River Rouge, St. Clair and Oxford, which had been municipal affairs. A new million-dollar heat- ing plant, the third unit in the down town heating facilities owned by the De- troit Edison Company, has recently been constructed at the southeast corner of Congress and Cass. The other two units are located on Farmer Street and Park Place.
TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE SERVICE
The use of the telegraph first came to the attention of Detroit in 1845, when lectures were given in September by one Dr. Boynton, at the Presbyterian session-room. Late in the following year, Ezra Cornell, having constructed a line of telegraph from Baltimore to Washington for Professor Morse, to-
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gether with J. J. Speed, Jr., contracted with the owners of the patent to extend a line from Buffalo to Milwaukee, also taking in the principal towns on the Great Lakes. The contractors came to Detroit in the winter of 1846-47 and made this their headquarters. Subscriptions were obtained which insured the success of the enterprise and the first wire of the "Speed" line, as it was called, was placed in commission between Detroit and Ypsilanti on November 29, 1847. The office was in the rear of the second story of the building owned by Mr. Newberry, northeast corner Jefferson and Cass Avenues. In the winter of 1848 the line reached Chicago. The company, which became known as the Erie and Michigan Line, had several locations immediately afterward.
A line projected by Henry O'Reilly, and named for him, was completed between Detroit and Buffalo on March 1, 1848, and on that same date the first New York message was received. The third line, called the Snow Line, built by Josiah and William D. Snow, was built to Chicago by way of Monroe.
After this, for a period of eight years, the companies changed names fre- quently and entered into litigation with each other which eventually resulted in a compromise or consolidation. The name of the new organization was the Western Union Telegraph Company and the date of its establishment was April 4, 1856. The office of the new company was at first located at 52 Gris- wold Street, but was often moved afterwards.
On July 16, 1857, the first telegraph. cable was laid across the Detroit River. On August 16 and 17, 1858, following a premature celebration on the fifth, the completion of the Atlantic cable was acclaimed by the citizens in customary fashion-parades, bonfires, dancing, musie and speech-making.
In 1863, the United States Telegraph Company built into Michigan, but became a part of the Western Union three years later. The Atlantic and Pa- cific Line was built from Toledo to Detroit in 1868. The American Union Line was established here in 1880. In February, 1881, all the companies rep- resented in Detroit consolidated, In 1881, during the summer, the Mutual Union Company came in, but was sold to the Western Union in 1SS3. The Bankers and Merchants Telegraph Line opened in 1884, was reorganized as the United Lines Company in 1885. In 1883 an organization known as the Michigan Postal Telegraph Company was organized. The district telegraph system was inaugurated at Detroit in 1875 by a stock company formed for that purpose.
The Postal Telegraph-Cable Company was organized in New York in 1886 and an office opened in Detroit in 1887, with six employes. Quarters were secured in the rear of Ives & Sons bank on Griswold Street.
The way for the most modern of public utilities, the telephone, was prepared in this city by a two years' experience with the American Distriet Telegraph. The latter company was organized in the winter of 1875-6 and the fol- lowing spring strung wires and placed many signal boxes in the business part of the city, thus establishing the value of a means of speedy and direet local communication by messengers. When the telephone instrument was intro- duced it was a question with many whether it was simply an ingenious toy or an agency of practical use. In 1877 the manager of the District Telegraph Company put an experimental telephonie line between his home and his office. It worked satisfactorily and a few public exhibitions of the capabilities of the instrument followed. In 1878, through a station in the basement of the District Telegraph office, a few business telephones were installed, and from this small
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beginning the extension of the business was rapid. It soon required a larger central exchange and switchboard which were established in the Newberry Building. In 1893 a large building was constructed at Washington Boulevard and Clifford Street exclusively for this service, and in 1918 a still larger build- ing on Cass Avenue opposite State Street was completed. Both structures are now required for the use of the company which controls the service. State service was inaugurated in 1881, and long distance service to remote cities in 1893. The service was extended across the continent in 1916. A notable event in connection with that was a dinner with 200 guests at the Board of Commerce, when by receivers at each table the guests were simultaneously placed in communication with the Chamber of Commerce and city officials in San Francisco.
In the early days of the service a number of different companies were formed in the state, but by combination and absorption they were all merged in the Michigan State Telephone Company, organized in February, 1904. The su- premacy of that company was disputed by a company organized through the agency of Mayor Pingree as a protest against the high rates which the old company was charging. In the course of the next two years the new com- pany, which was called the Detroit Telephone Company, had laid conduits with a capacity for 10,000 telephones and installed a switchboard with capacity for 6,000, though the latter number never was reached. The business took the usual course in such cases of a ruinous rate war, the inconvenience to the public of two sets of phones and the final absorption of the weaker company by the stronger. As an illustration of the magnitude of the present business it may be stated that a telephone directory of recent date, covering Detroit and eleven adjacent villages, contained over 160,000 names.
FIRST STREET RAILWAY LINES
The street railway system of this section had a very small beginning. Un- der an act passed by the Legislature of 1855, an ordinance was adopted by the common council permitting "certain persons to establish and operate street railways in Detroit." Under a suspicion that the promoters who asked for the ordinance wanted a franchise for speculative purposes, a deposit of $5,000 was required and on this account the ordinance was declined. Another start was then made and in November, 1862, an ordinance, which was practically a franchise, was passed, granting to C. S. Bushnell, John A. Griswold, Eben N. Wilcox and Nehemiah D. Sperry the right to build and operate a street railway system. The streets and avenues which it covered were Jefferson. Woodward, Michigan, Grand River and Gratiot. A line was also authorized on Fort from Twelfth to Third Streets, down Third to Woodbridge and east to Woodward. The cars were to be drawn by animals only and were to be run at the public convenience, but in no case oftener than once in twenty min- utes. Speed was limited to six miles an hour. The fare was fixed at five cents and a franchise tax was imposed of $15 per car per year. The sole outcome of this venture for several years was the building of a mile and a half of track on Jefferson from Dequindre to Third Street, and one on Woodward Avenue to Elizabeth Street. The track construction was cheap, the cars not very comfortable, the time of running was infrequent, the speed slow, the travel light, and by 1867 the company was nearly bankrupt. In that year a thorough
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reorganization was made. The capital increased to $500,000, and such sub- stantial citizens as Sidney D. Miller, Elijah W. Meddaugh and Frederick E. Driggs came in as stockholders, while James McMillan and George Hendrie held a large block of stock as trustees. Mr. Hendrie became manager and was the conspicuous figure in Detroit street car matters for the next twenty-five years.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYSTEM
So far as efficiency and real accommodation to the public went, this was the beginning of the street car system in the city. The Woodward Avenue line was extended as far as Erskine Street, and the Jefferson Avenue and Fort Street lines to Elmwood. The Grand River Avenue line was commenced in 1868, the Congress and Baker in 1873, and the Central Market, Cass Avenue and Third Street, n 1875. These were al commenced by other companies, but were ultimately purchased by the Detroit City Railway. The Brush, Trumbull, Myrtle and Chene Street lines followed at intervals of a few years.
There had been more or less friction between the street railway company and the city government for some time, but the "Thirty Years' War" com- menced in 1890. Hazen S. Pingree took his seat as mayor in January, made a declaration in favor of municipal ownership of street railways and prepared to take part in any controversy that might arise. The opportunity soon offered. The employes of the railway company struck for higher wages and more fa- vorable working conditions and a riot occurred in which one car was run into the river, another overturned and traffic seriously interrupted. Mayor Pin- gree refused a request to call out the state troops, but addressed the rioters and finally brought about a settlement by arbitration. About the same time the company brought in a new ordinance giving it a franchise for thirty years, with fare at six tickets for 25 cents. The council passed, the mayor vetoed it and called a mass meeting of citizens, which was held on July 7, 1891, and almost unanimously sustained his position. About a fortnight later the De- . troit City Railway Company sold out to a new company called the Detroit Citizens Railway Company. The old company had been very slow about mak- ing improvements. Horses were still the motive power. Detroiters were often twitted with the fact that Port Huron and Sault Ste. Marie were ahead of them with electric railways. The new company remedied this by preparing at once to install an electric system. The city election in November, 1891, turned largely on the street car question, and Mr. Pingree was reelected by a vote larger than that of his two opponents combined. It hardly needed this vindication to induce him to continue his fight with the company. He next attacked the existing franchise of the company. The original grant was from 1863 to 1893. In 1879 it was renewed under more liberal terms for thirty years from that date. This the mayor attacked on the ground that the renewal could not be granted until the first franchise had expired. The case was fought all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. The mayor's next step was to secure the organization of the Detroit Railway Company, which built sixty miles of track, the so-called three cent lines, which sold tickets eight for 25 cents. This was after some years absorbed by the old company, but the franchise rate of fare continued until in one of the dickers it was voluntarily relinquished by the city in 1918.
HIGHLAND PARK RAILWAY
First electric line connected with horse cars on city lines running out Woodward to railroad crossing. Early '90s.
DETROIT RAILWAY COMPANY Opening Day, 1895
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A STATE OF WAR
From 1894 for twenty-five years there was intermittent warfare between the city and the Detroit Citizens' Railway, or, as it was named in 1900, the Detroit United Railway. The "street car question" was the subject of more dissension, more political intrigue, more acrimonious disputation and more negotiation than all other public services combined. The surveys, appraisals, reports, agreements, settlements and tentative franchises that were printed make a large body of literature, and the mayors and aldermen who were elected or defeated on this issue make a numerous company. Twice the people voted by large majorities in favor of the abstract principle of municipal ownership, but every proposition that was brought forward to accomplish that purpose was voted down. In 1906 the "Codd-Hutchins" plan was negotiated, pro- viding for ten tickets for 25 cents during the five "rush hours" of the day, and a straight 5 cent fare the rest of the time. The people rejected it by vote of 30,97S no to 14,411 yes. In 1910, ten different propositions giving the com- pany the right to make needed extensions were rejected by votes of about three to one. In 1912 the "Thompson-Hally" ordinance was submitted. It fixed fares at eight tickets for 25 cents from 5 A. M. to 8 P. M., with transfers, secured certain extensions and gave the city the right to purchase. It re- ceived 22,308 affirmative votes and 30,733 negative. In 1913, by vote of 40,531 to 9,542, the people favored authorizing the city to "acquire by purchase, condemnation or construction and to own, maintain and operate street rail- ways within the city and within a distance of ten miles from any portion of its limits." To carry out this authority the Couzens' Street Railway Com- mission offered in 1915 a contract for municipal purchase of existing lines, the price to be determined by the circuit courts after the purchase. For this so- called "pig-in-the-poke" plan the vote was yes 32,514, no 35,676. In 1919 Mayor Couzens' purchase plan was submitted. It provided for the purchase of all the lines at an agreed price of $31,500,000. The vote was 63,SS3 yes and 70,271 no. At the same time there was submitted a charter amendment providing for the issue of $24,000,000 in bonds with which to make the initial payment on the purchase. This was also rejected by 64,236 negative votes to 60,157 affirmative. Finally, in April, 1920, the mayor submitted another plan, providing for the issue of $15,000,000 in bonds, the proceeds to be used in building and equipping 100 miles of new track and taking over fifty-five miles of the D. U. R. lines on which the franchises had expired. This carried by a vote of 89,285 to 51,093. The first result was the excavation of two blocks on Charlevois west of Connor's Avenue. On August 24, 1920, the mayor drove the first spike in the construction of the St. Jean line and thenceforward the work progressed, despite numerous obstacles. On February 2, 1921, approxi- mately six miles of M. O. (municipal ownership) lines had been completed and on that date service was started on the Charlevois and St. Jean lines. Some- thing more than six thousand passengers traveled that day on the two lines, paying the company over $260. Through a barrage of criticism, of residents' petitions, court actions, newspaper comments, elections and official difficulties, the construction of the M. O. lines has continued. The quality of the road- bed, the steel ties, the rails have been assailed; the employment of a $100,000 a year engineer has been attacked; and the small cars, each with a one-man crew, first used on the crosstown lines, have threatened to become the subject
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of as many jokes as a certain other well known Detroit commodity. The year 1921 was a year of rapid maneuvering on the part of both the city adminis- tration and the D. U. R., with the weight of public opinion-at least as ex- pressed at the polls-on the side of municipal ownership. Five cent fares came back on the D. U. R. lines in June and in August the company refused the city's offer of $338,000 for its Fort and Woodward lines. There came also the ordinance known as the "ouster" ordinance, by which the D. U. R. was to be forced off the Woodward and Fort routes, and which was ratified by the vote of the people in November, 1921. However, the ouster has not been put into effect to date, but is held in abeyance until conditions have the opportunity to become better. After the November election, announcement was made that the city and street car company would both use the lines in question, having alternate cars on the lines, the city using the modern Peter Witt cars in vogue in other cities. Transfers from both D. U. R. and M. O. lines were to be interchangeable.
The most recent development in the street car situation was the decision by Judge Clyde L. Webster in the Circuit Court on December 12, 1921, by which the sale of the thirty miles of day-to-day agreement lines was to be made by the D. U. R. to the city. These lines include the Hamilton, Grand Belt and Linwood. The city, by the terms of the decision, is to pay the D. U. R. $692,277 for 105 motor cars and twenty-three trailers, and to pay the Guaranty Trust Company of New York $1,605,000 for the tracks, poles and overhead equipment which they hold as security for a mortgage upon the D. U. R. The traction company constructed these day-to-day lines under the agreement that the city could buy the track and equipment if it desired to operate cars over these routes. The question of purchase by the city having come up, the Guaranty Trust Company held that its security would be jeopardized. Judge Webster held that the city's right to purchase held precedence, but that the city should pay the trust company the amount determined upon as the cost of the track and overhead equipment, thus giving them a cash security in- ' stead of a property security. Under the terms of the mortgage given the trust company, the D. U. R. had the right to sell equipment and rolling stock which became useless in the operation of the lines, consequently the court held that the cars, being useless to the traction company after the sale of the track, could be sold by them. The city began running M. O. cars over the Trumbull line, alternating with the D. U. R. cars, on the morning of December 14, 1921.
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