Utilities - Page Two

The corporate chart of Virginia-Western Power Company shows that that company combined several small companies purchased in 1913 and formed the corporation May, 1913. Greenbrier Milling Company franchise was purchased December 18, 1913. Virginia-Western manufactured electricity at Ronceverte. The much larger corporation, Virginia Public Service Company, bought Virginia-Western Power Company February 26, 1926. Virginia Public Service Company had an office in Alderson for years. Some of their local employees  in Alderson in the 1920’s and 30’s were, George Altare, Harold Copeland, Ralph Walthall, and Carrie M. Swope. In 1944 Virginia Public Service Company was acquired by Virginia Electric and Power Company which presently has a fifty year franchise in Alderson.

The electricity used in Alderson is manufactured at plants in Charlottesville, Chesterfield, Portsmouth, Yorktown and Possum Point, Virginia, with interconnections with Appalachian Electric Power Company at four points. Changeover from one plant to an- other is instantaneous as demand fluctuates. At present, the company has 973 customers in the corporate limits of Alderson with an annual revenue of $98,000.00. The Federal Reformatory’s annual bill is about $23,500.00, so the company has a local annual revenue totaling about $121,00000. The annual residential usage per customer has risen from 838 kwh in 1945 to 3214 in 1963.

The increase for all types of customers per year has risen from 2323 kwh in 1945 to 5475 kwh in 1963.

Virginia Electric and Power Company estimates an annual increase of 200 kwh per year per customer.

 Ref: Alderson Town Council Minutes Virginia Electric and Power C0., Officials and Records

The sewer system in Alderson just sort of grew up; added here and there, and pieced together. In the first bond issue election of August 24, 1905, for the first water works, $1,000 of the bond issue was for a sewerage system. That was far too little.

The town started furnishing water but had no sewerage system, and when the happy water users began to empty their bathtubs and flush their new-fangled commodes, they had no place to run the sewage. Some just ran it into the river, or the small creek on the south side or into a handy alley. The sanitation problem was acute and Town Council had a new problem to contend with. The Greenbrier was handy and the new sewers as they were built were just drained into the river.

By 1911 the town had built some sewers but modern progress ran ahead of the sewer system. The washing machine had appeared and the additional water used caused trouble. The town added a $3.00 per year charge to the water bill for each family who owned a washing machine. During the years, additions and improvements have been made as the town could finance them.

The State of West Virginia, by new statutes over the years, has compelled many municipalities to install expensive sewage treatment plants. Alderson will some day have to stop the present practice of polluting the Greenbrier. The estimate for such a plant is $350,000.00. The Town is trying to obtain a Federal grant under an Accelerated Works Program to finance two-thirds of the cost.

Over the years, Town Council Minutes show that city streets have been a major topic. Nothing caused so much trouble, cost so much money and aroused so much contention. For a long period after the town was incorporated, every male citizen under fifty years of age had to work on the streets a set period of time. The only excuse was physical disability, and the names of those excused were entered in the minutes. In the bond issue election of April 1905, $1,500.00 was voted to macadamize the main business streets.

In 1924-25, a large street improvement program was finished. Echols Construction Company was building the new Wolf Creek road, and had a contract to pave Alderson’s streets. During the WPA days of the late 1930’s, three—fourths of a mile of streets were paved and some resurfaced.

The town hopes for a grant from the Federal government of $44,880.00 to attempt to pave every street in town.

Alderson is not served by natural gas, yet at one time United Fuel Gas Company, the same utility serving Ronceverte, Lewisburg and White Sulphur Springs, had a franchise. On January 10, 1930, Town Council granted a franchise to United Fuel Gas which the company accepted February 2, 1930, agreeing to furnish gas within two years. There was a $2,000.00 bond furnished by the gas company and Southern Surety Company, New York, guaranteeing the fulfillment of the franchise. Two years passed and United Fuel Gas Company had done nothing and Council could get no satisfaction from the company.

The town sued the gas company and the Southern Surety Company in Monroe Circuit Court in October, 1932 for the amount of the $2,000.00 bond. The case was dismissed in November, 1932, as Alder- son and the utility company had settled out of court. The court record does not show the amount of the settlement or the reason the United Fuel Gas did not fulfill its obligation under the franchise. Informed Alderson sources say the utility thought the Federal Reformatory would become its biggest customer if they ran gas from its big pipe line into the Pickaway vicinity to Alderson. In the meantime, the Reformatory, then only three years old, had installed a fine coal-fired steam heating plant and did not see any reason to change to gas. When United Fuel Gas lost its biggest prospective customer, they say, it backed out.

The Monroe Watchman of November 10, 1932, gives the settlement to have been $1,150.00. The largest possible sum which could have been gained by the suit was $2,000.00, the amount of the surety bond. That year, 1932, was the bottom of the great Depression, and $1,150.00 was a substantial sum for the Town.
Ref: Case 7706, Monroe County Circuit Court

Next: Alderson's Newspapers

The contents contained in this series is copyrighted and the sole property of The Greenbrier Historical Society - Lewisburg, WV
Used by permission - November 18, 2008