Electric lighting to homes and businesses in Powell was still a wish in late 1919. The townsite around the government reclamation headquarters, officially incorporated as the Town of Powell in 1909, was a bustling farm community. Irrigation water delivered to industrious homesteaders on the Shoshone Project by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was peppering the valley with farm crops.

But there was no uniform electrical service. The only power was produced by small, private gasoline-powered generators.

That’s why various proposals to bring electrical service to Powell excited citizens — sometimes prematurely. There were starts and stops along the way before the dream was finally realized in 1922, another vital delivery from the “the Great Dam” in Shoshone Canyon.

From the pages of the Powell Tribune, the story of “powering Powell” will be retold in coming editions. The historical series begins in November 1919.

From the Powell Tribune, November 14, 1919:

Electric plant is now assured

Powell homes and business houses will soon enjoy the luxury of electric lighting, heating and other useful purposes. On another page of this issue will be found articles for incorporation of the Powell Electric company which is being organized to furnish this service and as soon as the incorporation is completed and the franchise secured we are assured that work will be started on the transmission lines which are to convey the current from the big generators at the Carbon plant near Cowley to our city.

Attorney L.A. Bowman, and H.E. Harris, of Lovell and Ralph Fuller of Powell, the incorporators of the company, met with the city council Monday evening, presenting for the consideration of the town council a franchise ordinance, which it is understood met with the council’s approval and will be favorably acted upon at an early date.

According to the terms of the franchise the company will file with the town council a bond in the sum of $5,000 as a guaranty of good faith and agree to have the service installed within nine months from the date of granting the franchise. They assured the council, however, that they expected to have the work finished within a much shorter time and weather permitting Powell people may be using the electric current three months from now. Now that it seems assured that Powell is to have an all-day and all-night electric power and lighting service our city begins taking rank with other neighboring places in the matter of offering inducements to outside industries to come here and locate. No town in the Big Horn Basin has enjoyed a more substantial growth and well-founded prosperity during the past ten years than has blessed this little city of ours in the heart of America’s greatest and most famed irrigation project. However, it had begun to be feared that unless we were speedily provided with some of the conveniences that are so necessary to a continuous and far-reaching growth, that Powell would be outstripped by more than one of our energetic and ambitious neighboring localities, who have cheap and abundant gas and electricity to offer.

There need be no worry about Powell’s being without these conveniences for a much longer time. We are soon to have the electricity, and the gas, which is so abundant within a very few miles of Powell, can’t much longer be kept from us. There is something about Powell which attracts, and everything being equal, the town will not be outdistanced by even the most energetic neighbor. From a mere flag station ten years ago, Powell has come to have a population of more than a thousand, and appears to take on a greater degree of growth with every passing year. The electrical conveniences will bring to us more than one industry and make more efficient those that we already have.

The school facilities of Powell are acknowledged the equal of anything to be found in the west, and with the superior church privileges and a new community building in prospect, not to mention the hundred and one details of our growth, such as the sewerage system in early contemplation, and our present very adequate municipal water supply, Powell will continue to attract new settlement and commercial growth. People are coming to Powell to reside in surprising numbers, and it looks as though our population would be doubled in a remarkably short period.

Electricity has come to help boost that growth and make more livable conditions for those who are already here. Now, the gas and the sewerage are the next improvements, and after that will come the paving of several blocks of our main thoroughfares, which are called upon to withstand such heavy motor traffic. It will take a few years to iron out all these needs, but good things are in store for Powell, and such growth as it takes on will be of a substantial and permanent character.