Kennewick Bargained for Brighter Streets—and a Ten-Year Utility Deal
In December 1916, Pacific Power Light proposed replacing Kennewick’s carbon arc lamps with hydrogen lamps, but council members wanted guarantees that new technology and future rate cuts would reach the city.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A new installation which will more than double the efficiency of the downtown street lighting is being contemplated by the city council. If the proposition submitted by Manager G. D. Langmuir of the Pacific Power Light Company at the council meeting Tuesday evening is accepted, the city will take on a new brilliancy soon after the first of the year.
The change under contemplation is to replace the present carbon lamps with new gas-filled hydrogen lamps and to substitute prismatic Holophane shades for the present metal shades on the incandescent street lamps. It is claimed the new hydrogen lamp will give two and one-half times the light furnished by the old arc, and the new shades will furnish a much better distribution of light from the smaller lamps. One of the hydrogen lamps has been temporarily installed at the intersection of Second and Yakima streets, and members of the council are of the opinion that it is all the lighting company claims for it.
If the city is willing to enter into a ten-year contract with the power company, the new service will cost no more than the old. The first five years of the present contract for street lighting expires January 1, 1917, the contract providing that unless the city gives the company 30 days’ written notice the contract is automatically renewed for another five years. This notice has been given.
The present rate on the arc lights is $66 a year per lamp. For the last five years the city has been paying $20 per year per lamp for the incandescents, but if the contract is renewed the price for the next five years will be $16 per year per lamp. This is two dollars a year less than the company’s tariffs filed with the state public service commission, but the contract antedates the tariff filing and is not affected by it.
Mr. Langmuir’s proposition is that the company will install the new hydrogen lamps and the new incandescent shades at a charge of $66 per year for the big lamps and $16 a year for the small lamps for the first five years and $18 a year for the second five years, provided the city will enter into a ten-year contract.
If the present contract is allowed to renew, the charge for the hydrogen lamps will be $69 a year.
Although members of the council are inclined to favor the company’s proposition, they are unwilling to enter into a new contract without attaching some strings to it. They want the contract to provide that in the event any new type of lamp becomes in general use for street lighting purposes such lamps are to be installed without additional charge, and that in case street lighting rates are reduced anywhere on the system Kennewick be given the benefit of these reductions.
The city’s wishes will be made known to the company’s head offices and the matter will be taken up at the next meeting of the council.
“One of the hydrogen lamps has been temporarily installed at the intersection of Second and Yakima streets, and members of the council are of the opinion that it is all the lighting company claims for it.”
The 1916 fight was about more than brightness: it was about contract length, rate guarantees, and whether a private utility’s newest technology would reach a small city. Those same questions—public leverage over private utilities and who benefits from infrastructure upgrades—still shape local politics.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.