Jackson City lights Consumers Energy celebrating its 125th anniversary

By Leanne Smith Jackson Citizen Patriot JACKSON, Mich. (AP) -- By 1886, Jackson was a burgeoning city with a bustling downtown. But it was still a bit hard to navigate the streets and sidewalks after dark: The gas and electric companies that had contracts to light up the night weren't doing a very good job. Enter William A. Foote, an Adrian miller who was fascinated with the potential of electricity and had a generator that had worked well to light up his hometown's downtown. Foote brought it with him when he demonstrated his plan for "modern" electric streetlights to the Jackson Common Council on Dec. 6, 1886. The impressed group quickly gave him permission to erect poles and stretch wires across Main Street to install six "dishpan" lights, which used tin plates to reflect the illumination and light up downtown as it had never before been lit. Foote's simple plan grew into Consumers Energy, which is now Michigan's largest utility and one of the largest utilities in the country. The company started a statewide, yearlong celebration of its 125th anniversary on Tuesday. "He only had an eighth-grade education because he had to quit school to go to work to help support his family," said Norvell Township's Lisa Carmoney, Foote's great-great-granddaughter. "But everywhere he went, he had a science journal rolled up in his back pocket that he would pull out and read. He had a lot of determination to succeed." In 1888, Foote started the Jackson Electric Light Works on Mechanic Street with Samuel Jarvis of Lansing and his brother, James B. Foote, who was reputed to have been a born engineer. They soon also started hydropower companies in Battle Creek and Albion. Competition was stiff and investors somewhat elusive, so Foote's company operated on a shoestring budget for several years. He was even known to borrow back the wages of his employees shortly after paying them, and it was said that he and his people got along on "tea and potato peelings." Foote knew hydropower was the most efficient to produce, so his company built dynamos on the Kalamazoo and Muskegon rivers, and pioneered the idea to use high-voltage, long-distance transmission lines to get the electricity to urban areas. His first triumph was the transmission of electricity 24 miles from the Trowbridge Dam near Allegan to Kalamazoo in September 1899. Because long-distance telephone lines were also rare at the time, Foote didn't know his experiment had worked until almost three hours after the switch had been flipped. It was a messenger on horseback who arrived at the dam yelling, "It's workin'. The lights is workin.'" that gave him the good news. Foote's reaction is said to have been that he wouldn't be borrowing employees' wages anymore. In 1902 and 1903, the principal revenue source for Foote's company, now called Jackson Light & Power Co., was the Jackson Street Railway, an electric-powered interurban transportation system that Foote took over from bankruptcy. It ran lines to Michigan Center, Wolf Lake and Grass Lake. Because there were no automobiles, the interurban cars were packed to capacity with several thousand 5-cent round-trip tickets sold every Sunday. This gave Foote quick cash to finance expansion. In 1904, the company maintained 238 luminous-arc lamps in Jackson, as well as companies in Albion, Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Plainwell and Otsego. In 1904, everything was merged into the Commonwealth Power Co. In 1910, Foote consolidated with Hodenpyl-Walbridge & Company to form Consumers Power Co. A year later, the company broke another long-distance transmission record when the Cooke Dam near Oscoda supplied power through Saginaw and Bay City to Flint and Owosso, a distance of 151 miles. Between 1921 and 1929, Consumers' gas and electric customers doubled from around 60,000 for gas and 130,000 for electric to more than 160,000 gas customers and 290,000 electric users. In 1927 amid much fanfare, Consumers moved into a new headquarters building on Michigan Avenue. In 1929, the company became part of Commonwealth & Southern. Before it was disbanded by the government in 1949 and Consumers became an independent entity, the company had subsidiaries in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. In 1987, CMS Energy Corp., headquartered in Dearborn, became the holding company for Consumers Power Co. In 1997, the company changed its name to Consumers Energy. In 2003, the company relocated its headquarters from Dearborn back to downtown Jackson with the opening of One Energy Plaza. Today, Consumers Energy provides electricity and/or natural gas to 6.8 million of Michigan's 10 million residents and has operations in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties. "It's been quite a ride, and through it all we've been committed to Jackson," said David Mengebier, Consumers Energy's senior vice president of governmental and public affairs and chief compliance officer. "The company has had a lot of things happen to it over time, but the foundation of the company -- commitment to customer service, honesty and integrity -- are still there." Published: Wed, Dec 7, 2011