A. C. BABSON

The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 589
Kanawha

A. C. BABSON. The West Virginia Water & Electric
Company is one of the more important public utilities of
the state. Its service primarily is supplying water and
electricity for Charleston and suburbs. The present cor-
poration is successor to the former Kanawha Water & Light
Company, which in turn represented several consolidations
among the water and electric companies of early times.
The corporation has expanded its service and facilities in
keeping with the great material development of Charleston
within recent years, and the assets of the company have
been augmented by the introduction of several million dollars
of outside capital, so that it has the financial resources to
insure a continuance of the adequate service performance
of the present. The water department represents a develop-
ment from small beginnings with increases almost from year
to year, until at present, with a modern plant, a population
of 50,000 and many industrial plants are supplied. With
a present normal filter plant capacity of about 12,000,000
gallons of water each 24 hours and about double this in
pumping capacity the demand is only about one half of
that capacity at present. The water supply is taken from
the Elk River, near the city limits, and pumped into a two
million gallon basin, after which it is filtered and pumped
to a million gallon reservoir and to the city mains. The
pumping is by steam pumps direct or by electric motor
driven pumps operating with the electric current supplied
by the company. All the necessary high pressure water can
be pumped by either electricity or steam. Reserve pumping
units are always ready to pick up the load in ease of
emergency or when the regular pumps are shut down for
repairs.

While the plant at present is more than adequate to
supply the demand, the site is large enough to permit
additional growth in facilities.

The electric department likewise represents an interesting
development from a small reciprocating engine unit of
small capacity to modern steam turbine generators and
high pressure boilers, capable of producing 8,750 kilowatts.

Mr. Max Pam, of Chicago, is president of this West
Virginia public utility and he, with assistance of his asso-
ciates in Chicago, New York and elsewhere has been able
to arrange for the large financing necessary to develop this
public necessity in the capital of the state. Several million
dollars of outside capital have thus been brought into
Charleston for this important enterprise through Mr. Pam's
influence.

The vice president and general manager of the company
is Mr. A. C. Babson, an electrical engineer and commercial
executive who has had a widely diversified experience and
many important responsibilities along the line of public
utility operation and management.

He was born at Sacramento, California, graduated Bache-
lor of Science in Electric Engineering in 1900 from the Uni-
versity of California, and for a number of years was asso-
ciated as manager for the General Electric Company's in-
terests in the state of Washington, with headquarters at
Seattle. Prior to coming to West Virginia Mr. Babson held
an executive position in Wisconsin managing some of the
gas and electric properties in the Milwaukee District for the
Wisconsin Gas & Electric Company, one of the principal
public utility concerns of that state. While there Mr. Bab-
son served as vice president of the Wisconsin Public Utilities
Association. Mr. Babson took up his duties at Charleston
as vice president and general manager of the West Vir-
ginia Water & Electric Company, January 1, 1919, and since
that time has been actively interested in building up a mod-
ern water and electric system for the capital city. He is an
active member of the Charleston Chamber of Commerce, and
on the executive committee of the West Virginia Public
Utilities Association.


Submitted by:  vfcrook@earthlink.net (Valerie Crook)

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