Electricity Costs01

Waupaca County Post – Prime Time

July 6, 2006

When Waupaca Was Young

By Dan Nerhaugen

High Electricity Costs, Unreliable Phones in 1906

Waupaca’s high-tech infrastructure proved expensive and unreliable 100 years ago this week.

An ad in the July 6, 1906 Waupaca Republican began, “Now is the time to have your house wired for electric lights. They are so much better than kerosene and are cheap and healthy. The cost of wiring is much less than you think. The cost of lights averages from $1.00 to $1.50 per month for most customers. Call at the office and let us send a man to make an estimate. Getting the figures can cost you nothing at least. You can have a light day or night by simply turning the switch.”

While an electric bill of about $1.25 per month might seem pretty reasonable, it was in fact very expensive. Adjusted for a century’s worth of inflation, $1.25 in 1906 is now worth about $25. And while $25 per month for electricity isn’t much, in 1906 it bought practically nothing - a very few lights of very poor quality, and that was about it;.

A home’s electrical usage today includes the enormous draws by such energy hogs as air conditioners, refrigerators, stoves, clothes dryers and dishwashers – none of which would have been a factor in Waupacans’ 1906 bills.

Meanwhile, high-tech communications were faring no better; “Fifty Phones Knocked Out”, declared a headline in that weeks’ Republican. “The electrical storms last week played havoc on the telephone service not only in this city but elsewhere,” the paper reported.

“A bolt of lightning struck the long-distance line somewhere in the city and entered the cable on Fulton Street and put 50 telephones out of commission in the twinkling of an eye as it shattered and burned nearly every wire in the cable.

“Manager Slater assisted by two aerial experts in cable construction, Messrs. Jas. L. Monakan and Peter Koepke of Milwaukee, are putting in all new wires in the cable section between Fulton street and the citizen’s telephone station. Mr. Slater says he can regulate everything pretty good and ward off trouble but sometimes the elements get the best of them and put phones out of service where they least expect it.

“Electricity during storms cuts up queer capers sometimes and while there are good safeguards for preventing accidents, fires, etc. at the house or exchange, there does not seem to be any possible way of avoiding expensive repairs or the discomfiture of going without a telephone sometimes as a result of great electrical disturbances.

“Mr. Slater hopes to get the disabled wires repaired this week and the phones in service again.”