McMeekin Station, South Carolina Electric & Gas Company's newest expansion project, symbolizes the firm's post-war growth. 10cated 15 miles from Columbia, S. C., the plant will have two power units in operation next year, may add other units later, |
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South Carolina Electric & Gas Company shares much in common with the Southern Railway which has served the company under one name or another for more than a hundred years.
Both are private enterprises providing a vital public service to people and industry in south and central South Carolina-and spending their own money to do so. Both have a dollars-and-cents interest in the industrial growth of the region and of the South at large. Both can look back on a strikingly similar pattern of growth.
The development of small local gas, light and transportation companies and their combination into one company now serving all or part of 23 of the state's 46 counties is reminiscent of the early growth of railroads in South Carolina.
McMeekin Station, South Carolina Electric & Gas Company's newest expansion project, symbolizes the firm's post-war growth. 10cated 15 miles from Columbia, S. C., the plant will have two power units in operation next year, may add other units later, |
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As the need arose for certain types of community services, small local companies were organized to meet that demand. First it was gas for lighting and heat, later horse-drawn streetcars for public transit. When the miracle of electric lamps appeared on the scene, companies were organized to bring this new form of light to factories, homes and city streets.
Cities spread out. Demands increased. As a result many small service companies combined for more efficient and economical operation. Eventually, most of the public utility service in central and southern 'South Carolina came to be provided by one large company with the financial resources to serve the present and build for the future.
Company's new office building is being constructed on a site just across the street from Southern's Columbia station. |
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Hydro-electric plant on Columbia Canal near Gervais Street bridge is the company's oldest remaining plant. It was built in 1901, had power units replaced in the late 20's and one additional unit installed in 1953. |
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What such building for the future often involves can be seen in two recent expansions of the power company.
A steam-generating electric power plant recently built and which serves the needs of the Atomic Energy Commission's Savannah River Plant cost more than $40 million. This is Urquhart Station, built by the company's wholly-owned subsidiary, the South Carolina Generating Company.
Excursion via Southern Railway helped celebrate opening of hydro-electric generating plant at Parr Shoals, S. C., in 1914. |
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Besides these plants, the company has two other steam-electric plants (at Parr Shoals and Charleston, S. C.) and four hydro-electric plants. Two of the latter are located near the steam-electric plants at Parr Shoals and Lake Murray, one is in Columbia, and the other on the Savannah River near Martinez, Ga.
Steam-electric generating plant at Parr near the hydro-electric plant is the S.C.E.&G.'s oldest steam plant still in service. It was built in 1925. |
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Fifteen hundred miles of high-voltage transmission lines and a 7,000-mile network of distribution lines carry electric current to homes, businesses and industrial plants in the company's 23-county area.
S.C.E.&G. uses more than 800 miles of pipeline for the transmission and distribution of gas for cooking and heating. It maintains business offices at Columbia and Charleston and 35 branch offices throughout its service area. The coach division provides bus service for the cities of Columbia and Charleston and their suburbs.
The Hagood steam-electric generating plant near Charleston produces power for city and surrounding area. It was built in 1947 and had new units added in 1950 and 1952. |
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All this stems from a small beginning more than a century ago in two cities where railroads later to be part of Southern were also starting to develop.
One branch of the present power company began with the incorporation of the Charleston Gas Light Company in 1846, the other with the appearance of the Columbia Gas Light Company in 1852.
Installing a power transformer underground in downtown Columbia in 1949. Bulky power equipment is now installed principally below ground. |
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Congaree Gas and Electric Company after 1887 began generating and distributing electricity in and around Columbia. Other similar companies grew up in the surrounding area.
Boring for a pipeline to serve gas customers in the Charleston area. |
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All these were combined in 1891 with the chartering of the Columbia Electric Street Railway, Light and Power Company. Gradually this company took in other local transit and power companies in a widening area around Columbia. By the time the company changed its name from Broad River Power Company to the present one in 1937 it represented the growth and combination of more than 30 local service companies.
Meanwhile, much the same sequence of events took place in Charleston after the early company built its first gasworks, laid pipe through the streets of the coastal city and sent the lamplighter on his colorful nightly rounds.
Charleston City Railway operated a horse-drawn car line from 1861 until the advent of electric trolleys in 1897. In that same year the Charleston-Edison Light and Power Company was chartered.
Giant turbines in a steam generating plant are shock mounted separate from the rest of the building to lessen vibration. (These are at Urquhart Station on Savannah River.) |
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With the addition of the Charleston and Seashore Railway Company (1898), these companies combined in 1899 as the Charleston Consolidated Gas and Electric Company. It became the South Carolina Power Company in 1926 and in the next two years added a number of other local service companies to its ranks.
In 1928, Commonwealth and Southern bought 'the South Carolina Power Company and held it for almost 20 years before selling it early in 1948 to the South Carolina Electric & Gas Company. By 1950 the union of the two companies was complete and the South Carolina Power Company dissolved.
Urquhart Station's control panel (this is about one quarter of it) gives some idea of the complexity of a modem steam plant generating power for homes and industries. |
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The combined company, result of a century of growth, is a $200 million servant of South Carolina people and industry. Railroads-and the Southern in particular-played an appreciable role in that growth.
What appeared on the pages of the Charleston Courier on December 22, 1846, may be only coincidence, but it is interesting. The same report of legislative doings that mentioned the act chartering the Charleston Gas Light Company noted also the acts chartering the Charlotte and South Carolina Railroad and amending the charter of the Columbia and Greenville Rail Road Company.
Air view of Urquhart Station shows the rail siding and coal storage areas (at right). This will be the company's largest plant until the completion of McMeekin Station. Power from this plant goes largely to the Atomic Energy Commission's Savannah River Plant. |
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Perhaps more than coincidence is involved here, since the rise of all these companies gave evidence of the region's growth. Success of the first railroads led to the establishment of others. In turn the increased prosperity brought about by the new form of transportation spurred the demand for new public services and provided ~he means for supplying them.
Railroad service contributed more directly to the growth of gas and power companies just as it did to the construction of other industries. Construction materials, coal for the early gas manufacturing plants and later the machinery for electric power plants moved in by rail.
One of Columbia's early trolleys at the entrance to the city's first car barn. (The picture dates back to 1893.) It was operated by a predecessor of South Carolina Electric & Gas. |
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Coal for steam generating plants that use coal still moves in by the hopper car load. And the rail movement of a heavy generator part for a power plant even now makes headlines along the route.
Structural steel, construction material and heavy machinery for the Urquhart Station completed a few years ago and the McMeekin Station now under construction moved and are moving by rail.
Last streetcar to serve Columbia when the city's transit system switched completely to bus operation in 1936. The name of the company was changed a few months afterward. |
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Sometimes it circulates to the customers of other neighboring power companies, for utility companies in adjoining areas work together as closely as connecting railways. (S.C.E.&C. has direct connections with five other power companies. )
Exchange of power between companies is a normal business transaction. It becomes even more valuable when an emergency affects the power supply in any one area. Neighboring power companies use their reserve capacity to fill in until normal service can be restored.
One of the company's transit coaches up on the lift for maintenance. |
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Thanks to this inter-company cooperation, power failures are rare and seldom last for more than a few minutes. When they do happen they bring a sudden realization of the degree to which people depend on an unfailing flow of power in plants, shops and homes. This silent servant tends to be taken completely for granted as long as it is there for use at the flick of a switch.
Railroad and power .company share a lively interest in the industrial growth of the area they both serve. Industrial plants are major users of electric power as well as rail transportation. Thriving business and industry provide "future insurance" of the surest kind for a public utility.
S.C.E.&G. takes an active part .in encouraging industrial and business expansion in its 23-county service area. In addition the company carries on an extensive effort to promote greater use of its services among already-existing homes and industries.
A modern bus at work on Main Street in Columbia. The company's transit division in Columbia has won the lop safety award in its population class for 12 years in a row. The Charleston transit operation has done the same for the past three years. (The two are in different classes.) |
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The post-war growth of the South has been reflected in a surge of expansion by this South Carolina utility. Since 1947 the company has more than doubled its electric power capacity, in another year will have more than tripled it.
Like Southern Railway, the South Carolina Electric & Gas Company has its work cut out keeping a step ahead of the needs of an industrially-expanding territory.