Here is an article I found from my local newsletter.

Source: Paulding News & Views, "Community: Paulding County History: The Lamplighter", Paulding Events * Tips * Info, Volume 8, Number 7, July 2026, page 30.

Written in 1994 by Rev. William F. (Billy) Byrd, (1911-2005). From "The Heritage of Paulding County, Georgia 1832-1999', sold at the Paulding History Museum & Research Library aka "The Little Red Schoolhouse,' 295 North Johnston Street, Dallas, (678) 318-1394, pchsm.org. Sources: Pickett's Mill Historical Site Records

The first electricity I remember here in Dallas was produced by the Alabama Power and Light Company about 1924 or 1925. Pumpkinvine Creek, which is about three miles north of Dallas, flows under Highway 61 leading to Cartersville. The creek was dammed up, and a water turbine was installed to supply Dallas with 110 Volt electric current.

At first, only drop cord type wiring was placed in the homes. There was no dual or triple wire as we see in the old BX or the Romex we use today. It was all single insulated wires, made of copper, that connected the poles to our homes. Porcelain insulators were usually placed in holes drilled through the ceiling joists, and the single wire ran through the insulators. In those days, the only insulating tape was friction tape, so strips of cured rubber were used to first wrap the joints in the wires. Then, the same joints were securely wrapped with friction tape. In our home, and I assume it was the way most homes were wired, there was a single cold which came down out of the middle of the room with a socket on the end of it. There were no appliances, so the only need was to light the rooms. Formerly, the old kerosene lamps had fulfilled this purpose. At first the electricity was available for only two or three hours at night. Most folks were in bed by nine or ten o'clock, so lights were not needed any later.

Down behind the New Era Offices from Main Street, in the area behind the City of Dallas Parking Lot, was the substation serving Dallas. The electricity produced at the "The Electric Dam" was transmitted over wires to this substation. Large water cooled transformers were located there, cooled by water pumped through them. It was their function to take the high voltage generated at the turbines and reduce it to 110 volts which was appropriate for household use. Since, often in the summer, there would be dry times, and the creek was down, Dallas needed an additional source of current. This was accomplished by the installation of a large diesel generator down at the substation. In that way, when no current was forthcoming from the Electric Dam, it could be produced there in town. The water power, however, was the most economical.

Among the first purposes developed for the use of electricity outside the home was streetlights. Curtis Harris, then a lad of sixteen or seventeen was hired one spring to fill in for the son of the manager of the Electric Company. His job was to turn the streetlights on at dusk and then turn them off the next morning when it became day. The lights were mounted on a light pole, and below each one was a knife switch. The person turning them on used a long pole with which he reached up and closed the switch. When he came back the next morning to turn them off, he simply put the hook into the hole in the switch and pulled, disengaging the switch.

As nearly as I can determine, this was the way Dallas furnished electricity until about 1927 when The Alabama Power and Light sold out to Georgia Power Company. They in turn, erected their transmission lines into Dallas.

The improvement in electrical services, the addition of refrigerators, stoves, water heaters, and many small appliances made folks more aware of the need to upgrade their electrical systems. By then electrical outlets had been devised and the old "drop cord” systems in most houses were woefully inadequate. Besides, there were rumors that frayed wires were causing house fires.

A local man by the name of Mr. Jim Baker, son of one time Ordinary, J.W. Baker came back to town after working in the Miami area as an electrician. This was during the depression. He talked Dad into letting him rewire our house with a new cable that was being used in Miami and New York. It was an armored cable with a steel casing on it, called ”BX Cable." I watched him with fascination as he rewired our house and installed electrical outlets.

Times have changed, but in many attics are the remains of those old electrical systems, cut loose, just lying there. They remind us that we have come a long way in the use of one of the essential elements of our contemporary society. Electricity is still that undefinable power produced by cutting the field of magnetic force and channeling the result for our modern lives. ♦