A 25-Year Grip on Ione’s Water
Over a rival’s protest, Stevens County commissioners handed the Ione Water & Light Co. a quarter-century franchise to lay water mains through town—with a clause letting Ione buy the system out if it ever incorporated.
At the regular meeting of the county commissioners of Stevens County, Washington, in the court house at Colville, the application of the Ione Water & Light Co. for a franchise to lay down and maintain water mains in the streets and alleys of the town of Ione came on for hearing. Counsel appeared for the applicants and J. Rochford appeared for the protestants, the Ione Water & Power Co.; witnesses were sworn and testimony taken, and the matter was taken under advisement.
On September 9 the board granted the franchise. It found that notice had been posted and published as required, and that it was for the public interest to grant the application. The company received the right for twenty-five years to lay, construct, operate, and maintain water pipes, conduits, aqueducts, and a water system along the streets and alleys of Ione and specified county roads—the Ione and Metaline road, the Colville and Ione road, and the Tiger road—and along Houghton, Main, Blackwell, First, Second, Central, and Fourth avenues and the town’s alleys.
The franchise carried conditions: if the territory were later included in an incorporated city or town, local authorities could buy or condemn the system at its reasonable value, without added value for the unexpired franchise; the company was liable for damages caused by negligence in laying or maintaining mains; and the system had to be in actual operation by May 1, 1910, or the franchise would be forfeited.
“The authorities of such city or town shall have the right ... to acquire by purchase or condemnation any or all of such pipes, conduits and water systems.”
Utility franchises were the broadband and water monopolies of their day: towns traded long terms for service, then fought over rates, territory, and public buyout. The Ione case even wrote a municipal purchase clause into the deal—an early version of the public-utility debates that still shape Washington water and power.
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