Our neighbors had a 12 or 24V DC system left over from when they were
wealthy (family sorta fell apart along the way), and were the first
farm around to have electricity -- you could tell because the power
line ran diagonal across the field rather than along the road as they
had to pay for the poles and wire. Probably put in sometime in the
late 30's. The DC system had a windmill and a shed full of batteries,
probably more for the dairy than the house.
Most people around us didn't get power until after WWII unless they
were close to the Interurban line were it was cheap to get power. In
those days you had to pay for the line from wherever the last person
was connected, and six or seven miles of poles and wire was way too
much for most people to pay for, let alone the electricity when you
were connected.
My niece and nephew bought a house in St. Louis last summer in Benton
Park, across I55 from the Busch brewery. Built in the 1880s or 1890s,
and I suspect was supplied with city gas -- certainly downtown
Evansville had city gas at the time. Might have had gas lighting,
might have had electricity, impossible to tell since it was gutted and
"renovated" and all traces of the original stuff are gone. Fairly
small chimney and no signs of a coal chute or coal bin, and a shallow
basement with no signs of large holes in the floor for large gravity
flow ductwork, so I would guess either gas fired steam or gravity flow
hot water heat. Three story house with 12 ft ceilings on the first
floor, unlikely to have local coal stoves, and I haven't located a
chimney for the kitchen either, making me think it had a gas range
rather than a cookstove.
Peter
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