Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas, Volume 7, Number 2, Fall, 1995 Page: 4
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Electrifying Dallas
By Jack L. Brown Jr.URING THE EARLY 1880s, Dallas was experiencing
tremendous growth and development as a
result of the arrival of the railroads in 1872 and 1873.
Telegraph facilities accompanied the railroads, linking
the thriving city with others in Texas and the
United States. Dallas' s population nearly quadrupled
from 10,358 to 38,067 between 1880 and 1890. The
development of residential areas with beautiful
homes, many new business establishments, churches,
schools, and public facilities indicated a deep interest
in all aspects of sound growth, including economic
progress to undergird other improvements.'
One such "improvement" that would have a profound
and far-reaching effect on the city was the
introduction of electricity and electric service to
Dallas in the summer of 1882.
In 1881 a proposal to light Dallas with electric
arc lamps was ridiculed as being worthless and
dangerous. Opponents argued that electric lights
had not lived up to expectations in New York, had
been abandoned in New Orleans, and had failed
completely in London, England. Nevertheless, on
July 18, 1882, three young Dallas businessmen, W.
C. Connor, Alexander Sanger, and Jules E. Schneider,
obtained permission from the city council to use the
streets for the erection of equipment necessary to
provide electric arc lighting, thus creating the Dallas
Electric Lighting Company. At that time, the only
electric lights seen in Dallas were the arc lamps of a
traveling tent circus which carried its own generator.2
4Connor, Sanger, and Schneider were pioneers
in the new boom town period of Dallas's
development. Winship C. Connor, who became
president of the Dallas Electric Lighting Company,
organized the first volunteer fire department and in
1876, when he was twenty-seven years old, formed
the first waterworks company to pump water from
Browder Springs through a system of underground
water mains. He later served as vice president of
the Consolidated Electric Railway Company, president
of the Dallas Merchant' s Exchange, and mayor
of Dallas for seven years.3 Alex Sanger was one of
the "terminus merchants" who followed the Houston
& Texas Central Railroad as it built north from
Houston in the early 1870s. With his brother Philip,
he opened Sanger Brothers, Dallas's first and for
many years its most important department store.
While Philip attended to the business, Alex devoted
much of his time to civic affairs, serving as
a member of the Board of Aldermen; president of
the chamber of commerce, the Hebrew Benevolent
Association, and the United Charities; and a regent
of the University of Texas, as well as vice president
of the Dallas Electric Lighting Company.4 Jules
Schneider, a wholesale grocer who also headed the
local gas company, later served as president of the
State Fair of Texas and of the Consolidated Street
Railway Company, and as a director of the
Merchant's Exchange and the City National Bank.5
When Thomas Edison began working on the
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Dallas Historical Society. Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas, Volume 7, Number 2, Fall, 1995, periodical, 1995; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth35111/m1/6/?q=tex-fron: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Dallas Historical Society.