Municipal Power Plant
Yoakum, DeWitt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
After attempts by Yoakum officials to purchase existing electric power facilities failed, the city voted in 1930, at a commission meeting attended by about 300 local residents, to build its own municipal power plant. This building was designed by the firm of Montgomery and Ward engineers of Wichita Falls and built by F. O. Crawford of Yoakum in 1932 on land purchased from the Spencer-Sauer Lumber Company. The building housed Yoakum's sole electric power plant until 1938 and continued in use as an auxiliary electric plant until the early 1960s. From 1964 to 1989 the building served as a municipal machine shop. In 1988 city officials offered the "Friends of the Library," a local organization organized in 1978 to promote the city library, an opportunity to utilize the building. The organization made use of state funds and generous donations by local citizens to convert the building into a public library. The project has earned recognition as a fine example of restoration and adaptive use of a historic building. The building is an excellent example of an industrial facility. It features a 3-bay primary facade, large metal sash windows, a 5-part parapet with incised name block, and gable roof with protruding clerestory windows. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1993
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
During the Depression, the small railroad town of Yoakum decided in 1930 — at a packed commission meeting of some 300 residents — to build and own its own electricity rather than buy from an outside utility. The plant that engineers raised in 1932 lit the town until 1938, then served as an auxiliary station and later a city machine shop before local library boosters lovingly converted the sturdy industrial building into a public library in the late 1980s.
Why it matters
It embodies the wave of municipally owned utilities that let Depression-era American towns take control of their own power and infrastructure — and a model example of giving an old industrial building new civic life.
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Related people
- · F. O. Crawford
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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