Getting hydro lines from Niagara Falls to Toronto in early 1900s
Published May 26, 2022 at 10:28 am
Back in 1900, Niagara Falls had something that many other Ontario communities did not.
They had electricity, due in large part to the power generators that sat on the Niagara River’s edge.
While some Canadian cities such as Montreal, Quebec City and Sherbrooke had varying degrees of electricity before 1900, again due to the province’s hydro-electric plants, historians say it wasn’t until power lines were built from Niagara Falls to Toronto in 1906 that the true age of electric power in Canada began.
At this time, sources of wood used for fuel were nearly exhausted. Factories became dependent upon expensive coal, which had to be shipped in from Pennsylvania and Alberta. Most electricity was being generated by coal burning steam generating plants.
While the Toronto Electric Light Company pretty much had a monopoly on supplying electricity to cities, they were price-gouging and playing kingmaker over which plants got electricity and how much.
Thus in 1902, the Ontario Hydro Commission was created, supposedly to put control of electricity into the realm of public ownership.
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What was quickly realized is that Niagara was an tapped resource. Niagara had electricity; other municipalities wanted it – plain and simple.
So much so that “Niagara Power” became the central issue in the Ontario Provincial election of 1905. The Provincial Conservative Party ran on an election platform of “water power of Niagara should be free” because it was a natural resource – although one harnessed on the backs of the workers who built and ran the plants.
The Conservative Party won the election and Premier James Whitney immediately announced that no further private franchises would be granted for the generation of hydro-electric power at Niagara Falls.
He then brought in London Mayor Adam Beck, who had whispered “Niagara Power” in his ear during the campaign and made him the chairman of the newly created Ontario Hydro Electric Power Commission. It became the world’s first publicly owned power authority.
Of course, Beck could not generate electricity, only buy and distribute it. The first major project of the Ontario Power Commission was to build an 110,000 volt transmission line from Niagara Falls to Toronto.
The privately-owned Toronto Electric Light Company already had a 60,000 volt transmission line from Niagara Falls to Toronto and lobbied hard against the plans of the publicly owned commission.
In November 1908, work began on the Ontario Power Commission power transmission line from Niagara Falls to Toronto and was completed in October of 1910 when the first public power was switched on.
In 1914, the Ontario Power Commission was supplying over 100 municipalities in Ontario.
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