Maine History Online

Hydroelectric Power

This small-town economy intersected with Maine's monopolized economy in the development of the hydroelectric industry in the early decades of the 20th century.

Thomas Edison made electrical energy practical for industrial and home use in 1879. A year later, in 1880, a Maine woolen mill installed its first electric light.

This new source of energy quickly became a vital component of the pulp and paper industry, and as Maine people began to realize its full implications, hydro-power took on tremendous importance, promising a "wonderful transformation if electric power were harnessed to every industrial wheel in the state."

The hundreds of waterpower sites in upland Maine effectively placed a ceiling on development for areas without access to cheap coal for steam power. Hydroelectric power transmission promised to overcome these barriers.

A "great network of electric wires" would spread over the state, "tying together distant sections." It would light village streets, ease the burden of farm work, and power a system of interurban trolley cars to move people, products, and produce to the city.

But there was another vision of industrial growth in Maine, in which lines of energy moved in the opposite direction, drawing the energy from these scattered water powers into a single regional power grid and focusing this power on Maine's larger industrial cities.

Thus the question, as the Maine State Grange put it somewhat rhetorically, was "whether the development shall be in the interests of all the people, or whether the god-given bounty of [this] vast water power shall be monopolized and exploited by the big business interests."

This was indeed the question that dominated Maine politics through the early 20th century: would these small "electrics" serve small rural enterprises; or would they be combined to encourage larger, consolidated, and more competitive industries?

The initial phase of development seemed to suggest the former; by 1900 local energy producers powered a localized system of trolley lines extending from the Kennebec Valley to Boston. The power companies served local farm and manufacturing needs, but they were poorly suited for the age of monopoly.

As the capital requirements of these small concerns grew, larger companies like Cumberland County Power and Light, Bangor Hydro-Electric, Gould Electric, and Central Maine Power absorbed them, becoming larger and larger.

As CMP became larger, it positioned itself to build large dams and generate power for paper mills and many other industries – and challenged the Fernald Law that prohibited the export of hydroelectric power to other states. The law remained on the books, however, until 1950, a reflection of the image of Maine as a small-town society and the competing vision of modernity.

Modernity still challenges the values that Maine people hold dear – family, work, worship, leisure, and nature – and Maine people still struggle with choices like those they made in 1929, about what to preserve and what to leave behind as we move into a brave, new future.