Muscatine Water and Light began the 1950s with a celebration of sorts. 1950 marked the utility’s half-century mark in water service, and it was just 25 years since Water and Light had begun generating electric power from its first two small generators at the power plant on Muscatine Island.
Significant improvements would be made to the water system during this decade, including two new 1.5 million gallon reservoirs and an almost continuous project of replacing aging water mains and fire hydrants.
Muscatine’s electric system started the decade in good shape. The addition of 12,500 kilowatts (kW) of generation in late 1949 gave the utility a total peak capacity of 27,250 kW, which made the Muscatine power plant one of the largest in the state of Iowa. By 1952, the plant was generating 63.1 million kWh, a 225% increase in just 12 years.
The board of trustees warned that the substation and transmission lines were again loaded to capacity. One idea that was taking hold among utility people in Iowa and the Midwest was the concept of interconnecting electric systems for economies of scale and reliability.
Muscatine Water and Light had been connected with the Eastern Iowa Light and Power Cooperative, its rural electric neighbor, since 1940. The Power shortage of the war years had forced Water and Light to cut back on its power supply sales to Eastern Iowa, but it later became feasible again. In the mid-1950s, Muscatine Water and Light signed an interchange agreement with Iowa-Illinois Gas and Electric Company, and later, Iowa utilities formed the Iowa Pool to interchange power among themselves.
Late in the decade, Muscatine Water and Light embarked upon an ambitious program of expanding and upgrading its electric system. It contracted for its seventh generating unit in 1957, ordering a 25,000 kW unit, boiler, condenser, and coal handling equipment.
With four other units still in operation in 1959, the new Unit 7 would nearly double the capacity of the Muscatine station. The groundwork for much of the physical expansion of the 1950s was laid by J.W. “Andy” Andersen, Water and Light’s general manager from 1948 to 1958. A genial Nebraskan, he had come to Muscatine from a public power district in Columbus, Nebraska.
In June 1958, the trustees issued $4.25 million revenue bonds to pay for the new unit and other improvements. All but $100,000 of previous bond issues had been retired when the new bond issue was floated, a measure of Muscatine Water and Light’s continuing financial strength through the decade.
Other improvements planned for the late 1950s included new substations to relieve the overload on the system’s primary substation at Second and Pine Streets. One substation would take care of growing demands on the distribution system in the West Hill and North Mulberry areas, and another would be located on Ninth Street and Fillmore to accommodate the growing electric demands in the East Hill neighborhood.
One final project was undertaken in the 1950s. In 1959 and 1960, Water and Light paid close to $500,000 to replace obsolete boulevard streetlights and traffic lights in the central business district and to install 400-wat (W) mercury vapor streetlights on the city’s highway thoroughfares. Muscatine Water and Light was lighting the way for its hometown.
