Name/Title
Panhandle Power and Light Company [Photograph]Description
Following a 24 hour, seven day schedule, the Panhandle Power and Light Company; to furnish electricity to the oil fields - allowing them to drill at night. This picture was taken six weeks after the plant produced its first lights in November 1926, showing “Bickel Camp” - the camp that grew around the facility as the boom continued. It might have remained if not for the improvement of the highway and its proximity to Borger. A few residents stayed and even as late as 1948 five people called Electric City home.Context
Electric City was established on the south bank of the Canadian River in south central Hutchinson County. It began in July 1926 with the construction of the Panhandle Power and Light Company's Riverview Power Plant, three miles north of Borger. Men worked day and night until the plant was completed, so that electricity could be made available to neighboring oilfields as soon as possible. The plant's turbines began turning in November. Soon a subsidiary camp grew around the facility as the county's oil boom gained momentum. Within weeks, plant employees and oilfield workers had formed a sizable settlement, complete with dirt streets. With the improvement of local highways and transportation, however, employees no longer found it necessary to live next to the plant. By 1948 Electric City's population numbered only five. The plant was owned by Southwestern Public Service by the mid-1980s. At that time there was no longer a population at the site, since the plant was an easy commute from Borger.