Butts-Jasper County GaArchives News.....Power Plant-Great Strides being mde in work on power plant. January 1909 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Don Bankston http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00024.html#0005864 June 17, 2011, 1:01 pm Butts County Progress January 1909 POWER PLANT - Great Strides being made in work on power plant. Large Force working on the Immense Dam – Laying of Concrete Taken up – clearing of Reservoir Well Under Way. -The spectacle of five hundred men at work, eleven derricks – great human armed affairs that lift tons as easily as a man lifts a pound – two mixers that never stop, the one-two-six mixture – one of cement, two of sand and six of crushed stone – being used to make concrete, the ceaseless throbbing of several engines, two quarries in full operation and the blasting of rock is a sight well worth going many miles to see. Such is the view one looks up at the camps of the Central Georgia Power Company on the Ocmulgee river, eight miles from Jackson. To appreciate the view one must take a trip to the works and look at it all in all of its many forms. The laying of concrete has begun in earnest. The dam will be built in forty- five foot sections and will be first constructed to a height of thirty feet to make it secure from the annual spring freshets. It will then be raised to its final height of one hundred feet. But until the dam is build thirty feet high there will be little rest taken at the camps. In fact work goes on night and day, there being a day force and a night force. At present there are seven derricks in operation. There will be seven others installed before the work is finished, making a total of eighteen. Between five and six hundred men are at work. Several engines are in full swing, including one on the Bibb Short Line, which makes three trips a day. Just below the shoals, where the dam is being built, an orange peel derrick is used to dip sand out of the river, a cubic yard being secured in this way each minute. This is brought to the mixers in cars and with the proper proportions of sand and cement and stone is used to make concrete. And the sight of the immense pieces of stone being crushed in the big machine is among the interesting things one sees at the camps. An average of 500 cubic yards of masonry is lady per day. There will be a total of 175 cubic yards of masonry in the dam. It is given out that the dam, including the coffer dams on either side of the river will be five thousand feet in length and instead of generating 20,000 horse-power that 45,000 horse- power will be generated. A number of Northern capitalists have recently visited the plant. In the party were Mr. Farnan, chief superintendent of the J. G. White Co. engineers, New York; Mr. Scott, and Mr. Campbell, of New York; Mr. W. J. Massee, of Macon, and Mr. A. B. Leach, of New York. They reported they were well pleased with the progress being made on the work. Mr. C. W. Land, accompanied these gentlemen North. It is stated that one purpose of their visit to the camp was to consider the matter of developing interurban railways in this section. This is a matter left with Mr. W. J. Massee and the members of the Central Georgia Power company and not with the contractors, however. The work of clearing the reservoir has been going on for some time and from the camps one can see the smoke of burning brush curling up from the river swamps in the distance. A large force of hands is engaged in this part of the work and it is given out that satisfactory progress is being made in that part of the work. The following news item from the Macon News, telling of filing of a mortgage with the Windsor Trust Company will be of interest. That it is going to cost some ready money to continue to finance the Central Georgia Power Company, and place before the people the new electrical service that has been planned and which will be furnished by Ocmulgee river water, is to be seen from paper filed with Clerk R. A. Nisbet of the superior court. The paper in question is a copy of a mortgage of the Central Georgia Power Company to the Winder Trust company of New York. The details of the business agreement are made plain enough in the paper through which the power company secures the loan of $3,000,000. It is a first mortgage on the property of the new company, near Capp’s and Lloyd’s shoals on the Ocmulgee river. At that point an immense power plant is now in the course of construction and will be used to harness the water power that is to be concentrated there by means of a long 1400 foot dam, eighty feet high. An issue of bonds follow bearing 5per cent interest the last to mature in 1938 Butts County Progress Week of January 29, 1909 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/butts/newspapers/powerpla3084nw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/gafiles/ File size: 5.2 Kb