Ahnapee, The First City on the Peninsula to Have Electric Lights

On this date in history - December 20, 1880 - electric lights lit up New York's famed Broadway between 12th and 126th Streets. The blazing lights prompted some to call the area the Great White Way, a name that remains 130 years later. New York's theater district was on the cutting edge. So was Ahnapee. But not quite then.

When Joseph Wodsedalek's electric light plant began operation in January 1892, Ahnapee had the distinction of being the first city on the Door County peninsula with electric lights. The honor was short-lived as Sturgeon Bay followed a month later. Ahnapee's first electric light plant stood at the northwest corner of 6th and Fremont Streets.

Ahnapee boasted seven street lights with 2,000 candle power each, however the electric street lights did not completely replace the oil lamps. Almost immediately it was decided to keep the lights on all night as a service to the number of visitors who were unfamiliar with the city. Wodsedalek's own machine shop was the first building to be lit with electricity. Perry Opera House was the next.

It was not long before the city experienced problems with the new lights. When lines broke in September, the Record opined such trouble could not have been "foreseen or prevented." Darkened streets, which the paper felt was a reminder of "the olden days," were again a reality, ironically, on April Fool's Day in 1897. The break came at a time when residents were beginning to think electric lights were indispensable. Believe it or not, just a year earlier  the Record requested readers to neither damage or interfere with electric lights within the city.

In 1889, just four years before Wodsedalek's light plant threw the switch, Ahnapee prided itself on 18 oil street lamps. They required a lamplighter who was paid $50 a year,but then George Bohman was hired at $2.50 a week. Bohman carried around a ladder so he could clean the chimneys, trim the wicks and fill the lamps with oil. His duties also included those of bridge tender and harbormaster. As ships neared, it was Bohman's job to find a berth. If boats travelled the river, it was his responsibility to raise and lower the bridge at 2nd Street.

No longer is there a lamplighter nor electricity provided by a private company. No longer are there only seven streetlights. Those who thought electricity was indispensable 115 years ago were proven right!

Note: Ca. 1910 is depicted on this postcard of Algoma's Steele Street. Street lights are hanging above the intersection of 2nd and Steele in the foreground and above 3rd and Steele, further down the street. Electrical power poles and telephone poles line the street.