The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-06-13
STORY OF SMALL
 ELECTRIC PLANT Result Of One Boys Great
 Faith DREAMS ARE PRACTICAL Places Good Lighting Plant in Small New York Village of One Thou sand Inhabitants-lt Is
 a Success.

Those who travel across the Empire State by night and chance to look out of the car window while passing a certain rural village of about 1000 souls will be astonished to see the place abaze with electric lights. The fact that so small a village, located so far from any city or large town, is nightly illuminated with electricity, including the few streets, the stores and shops and nearly every one of the country homes, is a continual source of surprise and wonder to the traveller.
 Now this is the story of how that par ticular village obtained its electric lights, even as it was told to me, to satisfy my idle curiosity:
 A certain young man there was who be- came very much interested in electricity, although he worked every day in one of the stores in this village This was sew eral years ago and the young man I am telling you about had just graduated from the village High school, where the small laboratory had given him his first ideas of electrical machinery. He read and studied everything he could find on the subject of electricity whenever he could find the time to read books.
 It so happened that about the time he was deep in the subject of electric light ing plants for small cities and villages he became of age and a small sum of money left him by a thoughtful grand parent was placed at his disposal. This, added to what he had saved since he be- gan selling papers and working at odd jobs, gave him almost $400O quite a sum of money for young man of 21 in so small a community.
 With this money placed to his credit in the bank the young man went straight to three of the best known and wealthiest men of the village and unfolded the scheme which had been framing itself in his mind for years. It was nothing more or less than plan to establish an cleo tric light plant for the village.
 Of course these old men, who walked nightly home in the dark when the oil lights were not lighted or followed the tiny beacons when they were, pooh- poohed the idea from the start.
 Why, such plant would not pay"
 they echoed. 'Ifawe had fine water power maybe we could do it, but with coal; with coall why, 1t is ridiculous, pre- posterous.
 brought to them whole pages of facts
 and figures and carefully explained ev- cry detail of his experiment. Now, I am willing to risk $4000, all I have in the
 world, in this venture, for believe 1t will be a success said he. If you doubt these figures let me send to the General ] Electric company at Schenectady for an 1 engineer, 1t will cost us nothing, and he
 will verify all that I have shown you' | One of the merchants snorted some 1 thing about "a fool and his money and l left the room. The two others, more to l favor the young man than anything else,
 because they had long known his family, ] consented to talk with the engineer. ] In a few days the engineer came and l made a thorough inspection of the vil- l lage, He found out that coal could be 1 had for about $350 ton: he went over l the young mans figures and pronounced ] them correct except in one or two places,
 where he had actually been too high; he ! interviewed the president of the village and the members of the board and got l their consent for street lighting: talked
 with the merchants and the household
 CTS, then pronounced the venture a good ! one and advised the men to go in with 1 the boy and build the plant. l After due consideration and investiga- ton they agreed to form a company, place one of the men in as president the i young man as business manager, and 1 turn the sum of S10,O00 over to him with which to build and establish local cleo 1 tric lighting plant.
 1 The young man in question resigned
 his position in the store and started the | work It was no easy task, for the de- l tails of the construction work were even | larger and harder than he had antci-
 pated, but he met and conquered them : all
 i The power house was soon built, a i small, neat brick building close to the
 railroad yard. where car loads of coal could be switched in for the coal bunk CTS The chimney was the most con
 spicious tower in the whole village. By i the time the building was ready the ma
 chinery was at hand and engineers and