Newport Money Builds a Water System for a Brand-New Town
Newport investors incorporated the Ione Water Power Co. to pipe Cedar Creek water into Ione, a private utility bet on a townsite still being born.
Newport capital has undertaken the providing of a water system for the new town of Ione. The Ione Water Power Co. has been incorporated with a capitalization of $12,000. Chas. P. Moeser, of Newport, is president; E. B. H. Remly, of Newport, vice-president; W. G. Murray, of Ione, secretary; Win. Moeser, of Newport, treasurer. These gentlemen, with M. L. Hamilton, of Ione, also constitute the board of directors. The company has secured a franchise from the county commissioners to lay water mains along the county road and on the streets of the new town. The plant will be a gravity system taking the water from Cedar Creek. A temporary water system is being put in by the townsite people with a gasoline engine outfit to pump from Cedar Creek.
“The company has secured a franchise from the county commissioners to lay water mains along the county road and on the streets of the new town.”
A private company with a county franchise supplied the new town’s water—an arrangement that would later become a familiar municipal fault line over who controls essential infrastructure and what ratepayers owe distant shareholders. Ione’s growth depended on Cedar Creek, just as today’s small towns depend on water systems whose ownership and upkeep are never merely technical.
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