How a Hooper Barber Turned On the Town's First Electric Lights

On 12 May 1894, electric lights came on in Hooper for the first time. The machinery that powered them was not in a municipal plant or a utility company’s substation. It was in the back of Fred J. Herre’s barber shop.

Herre was a barber, a justice of the peace and, for a short time, the man responsible for bringing a modern electric system to town. His plant lasted only about a year under his ownership. The system that followed it spent the next quarter-century passing between owners, burning out, shutting down and leaving Hooper in darkness before residents finally built a dependable local company.

The Barber Who Built a Power Plant

Electric lighting was still new in this part of Nebraska when Hooper’s business owners began discussing it. Herre took the project on himself. After consulting an engineer in Omaha, he bought a light plant for $2,100 in February 1894. Its equipment included a steam engine, boiler and 110-volt direct-current generator.

The machinery went into the rear of his barber shop. An expert electrician wired nearby businesses and some of the closest homes. When the lights came on that May, the centennial history says they were brilliant and gave satisfaction in every instance.

The billing system was strikingly informal. A residence paid $1 per month for 64 candlepower; a business paid $1.50. No bills were mailed. Each customer came to the office, reported how many lights were connected and paid accordingly.

Herre soon decided the barber business offered a better return. In May 1895 he sold the plant to Louis Kellor. It changed hands again in December 1896, when Hans Sorenson bought it with plans to improve the service.

A Town In and Out of Darkness

Keeping the lights on proved much harder than installing them. In December 1897, trouble in the generator put it out of service for a night. Temporary repairs lasted only a few days before it burned out completely and had to be sent to Omaha to be rewound. Hooper was dark for almost a week.

The generator burned out again when the winter load arrived in 1898. Sorenson told local business owners that he could not justify another investment without more customers. At a meeting on 21 December, the businesses agreed to increase their combined connections to 300 lights. A new generator followed, but Sorenson still sought a buyer.

W.T. Martin bought the plant for $3,200 on 8 February 1900. He moved it, built a new power-house and changed the system from 110 to 220 volts. The replacement plant had capacity for 1,000 lights and began serving Hooper on 1 December 1900.

For two years it worked well. Then came another shutdown in April 1902. An expansion begun in 1904 was followed by a fire in the old part of the power-house that destroyed much of the switchboard and stopped service for at least three weeks.

Frank Hough bought the plant in October 1905. His turn brought a fuel shortage, another costly fire and a business that lost money whenever it ran. In April 1906, a railroad company confiscated a carload of coal he had ordered during what the history calls a period of “friction.” Hough was advised to close until he could find fuel. A fire damaged the plant and its supplies again in August 1908. The next spring he discontinued the morning run to reduce expenses.

Receivership, Meters and Another Fire

Hough tried to sell the system to the village or arrange power from Fremont, without success. By 1913 the plant was in receivership. The receiver raised flat rates by 20 percent and checked that customers were paying for every bulb connected to the lines.

Then the generator armature burned out in February 1914. An expert said the coils were too badly damaged to restart safely, and the court had to approve what happened next. A town meeting decided that a responsible local owner should buy the plant. M.E. Shipley purchased it at the receiver’s sale for $3,400.

Shipley began installing meters for customers with more than three lights and for anyone using an electric iron or washing machine. He improved the equipment and tried to build the operation into a paying business. In 1917 he sold it to the Continental Gas and Electric Corporation of Cleveland; Nebraska Gas and Electric acquired it the following year.

The 1919 Fire—on Which Date?

The centennial history contradicts itself about the fire that ended the old plant. One sentence says Nebraska Gas and Electric operated it until 16 February 1919, when it was destroyed. The next paragraph says the siren sounded at 10:45 on Monday, 17 February. The detailed account is tied to the 17th, but the source prints both dates and does not resolve them.

What happened is clearer than when. Fire broke out in the power-house two blocks east of Main Street. The frame building was covered with corrugated iron, and the suspected cause was the exhaust from an oil engine igniting the woodwork. Engineer Carl Hahlbeck Jr. tried a hand chemical extinguisher, while Will Sanders used a small hose. Oil-soaked material allowed the flames to spread too quickly.

Firefighters concentrated on saving nearby buildings. A barn across the alley on Dr. Simonson’s property burned halfway down. Bucket brigades worked to protect the Sanders residence and pop factory. The power company estimated its loss at $10,000 to $12,000, with only $2,500 in insurance. Because the plant also supplied Scribner, both towns went dark.

Hooper Subscribes to Its Own Future

Residents met at City Hall under Mayor Dau. Committees investigated temporary power and a possible connection to Fremont. A local subscription drive brought in $20,500 between one and six o’clock in a single day, followed by another $2,000 at the public meeting.

In April 1919, Bernard Monnich, W.G.J. Dau, L.J. Viersen, M.E. Shipley, Peter Simonson and John Edelmier incorporated the Hooper Electric Light and Power Company. Authorized capital was $50,000. While construction and right-of-way questions were settled, residents used candles, oil lamps and gas lamps. The town wanted one thing above all: dependable 24-hour service.

The new distribution, transmission and street-lighting system cost about $39,000. A 100-candlepower bulb was placed on each block, and Main Street received a line of ornamental electric-light posts. The old fire bell tower at the south end of Main Street was moved out of the way of the new line, and an electric whistle took over as the fire alarm and curfew signal.

The locally owned company was sold to Platte Valley Power Company in September 1926. After further mergers and sales, Nebraska Power Company took control in 1927. Public power arrived with Omaha Public Power District in 1946.

Hooper’s first electric light lasted because the town kept rebuilding it. The story began with a barber, a boiler and a generator behind a shop. It took burned machinery, receivership, public meetings and thousands of dollars subscribed by residents before light became something Hooper could expect at any hour of the day.

If your family kept records, bills or photographs connected with Hooper’s early electric companies, we would like to see them—especially anything that could settle the date of the 1919 fire.