Granbury Light Plant
Granbury, Hood County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Before 1923, privately owned light companies supplied electricity to the citizens of Granbury. In that year, the residents voted to build and own their own power plant. The city purchased the Granbury water, ice, light and power company and built this structure to house the new plant. Constructed by the municipal engineering company, the industrial building still houses the diesel engines and other machinery that generated electricity until the plant closed in 1954.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Before 1923, private companies supplied Granbury's electricity, until residents voted to build and own a municipal power plant. The city bought out the Granbury Water, Ice, Light and Power Company and erected this building to house the new plant, whose diesel engines generated the town's power until 1954. The machinery still sits inside the industrial structure.
Why it matters
Granbury's decision to own its own power plant reflects the wave of municipal utilities that brought electricity to small-town America in the early twentieth century.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
David L. Nutt Home
Granbury, TX
David Lee Nutt came to Texas from Missouri in 1857 and, in 1879, built this two-story plantation-style house of cypress lumber hauled by ox cart from East Texas. It soon became Hood County's first hotel — wryly dubbed "The Nutt House" — putting up the traveling salesmen, or "drummers," who called on Nutt's mercantile store, before reverting to a family home in 1900. Nutt also gave 40 acres for the original Granbury townsite.
Site of Schultz Blacksmith Shop
Granbury, TX
Carl Severin Schultz, born in Copenhagen in 1876, immigrated to the United States and settled in Granbury, where he tried several trades before buying this site in 1900 and becoming the village blacksmith. Known across the town and county for fine craftsmanship, he embodied the immigrant tradesmen who anchored small Texas towns at the turn of the century.
J.F. and J. Nutt Building
Granbury, TX
Blind brothers Jesse and Jacob Nutt helped establish Granbury as the Hood County seat, opening their first store in 1866 in a tiny log house with a wagon yard behind it. In 1893 a local contractor raised this sturdy building of hand-hewn Hood County stone, and around 1919 it became the Nutt Hotel, celebrated for its dining room. Three generations of the Nutt family occupied the landmark.
The Fair
Granbury, TX
Andy Aston built this Granbury square building in 1888 as a harness and saddle-making shop, and decorative ironwork was added during a 1906 remodeling while George Landers held a share of the business. After the harness trade moved out around 1908, a parade of retailers filled the space—Joe Kerr's grocery, several dry-goods firms, and the store that gave the building its name, "The Fair." Among the neighboring merchants was one nicknamed "Blue-Front Riley" for the painted facade of his earlier shop.