….The Waltham Gas and Light Company started operating on Pine Street in 1854. Their first customer was the cotton mill across the river. For the remainder of the 19th Century, gas piping was laid out and many homes in Waltham had gas lights. The first cost for gas was $4.00 per cubic foot. By 1906 the cost was $1.00 per cubic foot. The gas company in 1890 manufactured 26, 287,000 cubic feet of gas, in 1900 33, 516,000 and in 1908 38, 325,000 cubic feet in Waltham.
In the same year that the gas company started in Waltham another company, the watch factory ,was also starting. The watch factory in 1884 was making their own gas. However much of the gas was used to run gas engines which generated electricity for the factory. One of the first to use electricity in Waltham.
In the summer of 1886, a group of citizens in Waltham formed an Electric Light Company and plans were made to build an electric plant. Soon this group realized that it would be better that the Waltham Gas Company did this, so they merged on December 24, 1887, and soon electric lights were lighting-up the streets of Waltham.
In 1906 a new electric power plant was built on the southeast corner of the gas company’s property on Pine Street. The plant furnished power for commercial lighting and power, arc and incandescent street lighting, and supplied large quantities of electric railway power to the local roads.
This new plant, which is still standing, was the monolithic type of reinforced concrete construction. It had a 200-foot chimney with an eight-foot diameter. This was the first plant in the area to use steam turbines. Two 750 horsepower Westinghouse-Parsons turbines generated this electricity. The boilers burned 600 tons of coal each year to provide the turbines with steam. The coal was delivered from trains off the nearby railroad trestle. In 1909 the company slit up and the electric portion was under the Edison Illuminating Company. Homes throughout Waltham were changing from gas lights to electric lighting. Very few wall plugs were installed in the earlier years, but as new electric appliance came on the market in later years, more wall plugs were installed.
More on Home Lighting
Some wonder where gas came from in those earlier days. It was processed from coal to gas at the gas plant on Pine Street. Basically, if one heats coal in a closed vessel, gas is emitted. From here the gas is piped to the homes. The watch factory also used the same process to make their own gas.
Aside from gas lights in the 19th Century, some homes used kerosene lamps for lighting. As a matter of fact, kerosene was first chemically produced in Waltham by Luther and William Atwood in 1855. Their plant was the United States Chemical Company and was located at the northeast side of the Prospect Street bridge. It was later replaced by Peterson’s Ice House, and Reece Corporation. (Note: today Nova Biomedical)
Kerosene lighting was used in some low-income homes until the 19030’s…… (Note: This generation growing up in the 19030’s saw the last of the horse and wagons in Waltham).
Taken from the Waltham Museum Newsletter March 10, 2003