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Chronological List of District Heating
Systems in the United States |
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| 1878
Map of District Heating System in Lockport |
Birdsill Holly was born in Auburn, New York on November 8, 1820. He joined the Seneca Falls firm of Silsby & Race in 1853, which became Silsby, Race & Holly. When the Village of Lockport recognized the need to develop manufacturing in the village in 1858, several residents invited Holly to come to Lockport. The Holly Manufacturing Company was organized on May 2, 1859 with a capital of $20,000, with former New York Governor Washington Hunt, former Congressman Thomas T. Flagler, Charles Keep, Silas H. Marks, L.F. Bowen, G.W. Bowen, and Birdsill Holly as stockholders. Under superintendent Holly the company made sewing machines, a variety of pumps, and other metal goods. After a serious fire in Lockport in 1863 Holly conceived the idea of using one of his rotary pumps to force water through pipes to fire hydrants using what he called "direct pressure." The village approved his plan and it was demonstrated in August 1863. Holly recognized that a large potential market existed for urban fire protection systems and sold a system to his hometown of Auburn where a system began operating in November 1865. Holly then secured several patents covering his ideas and published a pamphlet in March 1867. Several other cities bought systems, although not all worked well. Holly also had to deal with several imitators and the company filed suits for patent infringement.
By June 1876 the company's stockholders expressed concern about the large amounts being paid to defend Holly 's patents in the numerous infringement cases and it was suggested that the firm close down. Holly carried on with the patent suits, but largely left the firm to pursue another idea of distributing steam to multiple buildings from a central boiler plant. He then formed the Holly Steam Combination Company with a different set of investors to develop and sell district steam systems.
The following month, Holly began experimenting with underground steam pipes to determine how much heat was lost. He first installed 500 feet of one-inch pipes in his yard to measure the losses, and that proving satisfactory installed a 490-foot 1½-inch steam line laid in a 10"x12" wooden box filled with sawdust.to the house of Mary C. Works, widow of Samuel Works. A sketch of the original piping layout was included on page 5 of the second issue of the ADSCO Advocate in 1877 and also on page 156 of District Heating in April 1959.
Satisfied with the results, Holly solicited a group of local businessmen who were not affiliated with the Holly Manufacturing Company to form a new corporation in January 1877, which was called the Holly Steam Combination Company (Limited).
References
1876 The
Holly Steam Combination Company, Limited, Lockport
Preliminary Certificate Filed November 27, 1876
Final Certificate of Incorporation, January 17, 1877
Capital $25,000
Business: Manufacturing and putting into use machinery, pipes and
appliances for supplying steam for heating, and machine labor.
1877 "The Holly Steam Combination Company," Lockport Daily Journal, January 5, 1877, Page 4.
1877 "Holly Steam Combination Company Election," Lockport Daily Union, January 8, 1877, Page 3.
1877 "Corporation
Proceedings," Lockport
Daily Journal, February 28, 1877, Page 4.
Petition of the Holly Steam Combination Company (limited), for permission
to open streets and alleys between Main street and High street (north and
south), and Washburn street and Transit street (east and west) for the
purpose of laying steam mains and pipes for heating and manufacturing
purposes, etc. Adopted.
1877 "Petitions,"
Lockport Daily Journal, March 21, 1877, Page 4
The Holly Steam Combination Company (Limited) respectfully ask that you
extend the territory to be occupied by their steam mains and laterals, so
as to embrace all streets and alleys in the city. Grants, under the
same conditions as the petition of Feb. 27th ult.
1878 "Steam
Heating," Buffalo Express, January 31, 1878, Page 4.
Description of steam pipe installed by Buffalo brewery owner Jacob Scheu
to his residence at 1146 Niagara Street in Buffalo.
1878 Report on Lockport
System, by Birdsill Holly, May 18, 1878
No copy of this has been found, but portions were reprinted in District
Steam Supply by James Herbert Bartlett 1884:12-15 | also here
| pdf |
1881 "Steam
Heating Matter," Lockport Daily Journal, January 21, 1881,
Page 4.
Articles of incorporation of the American District Steam Company.
1881 Buffalo
Weekly Express, January 27, 1881, Page 2.
The "American District Steam Company" is the name of a new company just
formed at Lockport with the following officers : President. Dr. D. F.
Bishop; Vice-President, W. C. Andrews; Secretary, B. D. Hall ; Treasurer,
J. H. Babcock. The capital stock is to be $10,000,000, consisting of
100,000 shares at $100 a share.
1882 Lockport
City Directory 1882-1883
Page 35: Incorporated Companies - American District Steam Co.--31
Main street. Organized January, 1881, successors to Holly Steam
Combination Co. Capital $10,000,000. Dr. D. F. Bishop, pres.; W. C.
Andrews, Cleveland, O, vice pres.; B. D. Hall, sec.; I. H. Babcock, treas.
Page 115: American District Steam Company advertisement
1885 New
York Tribune, April 26, 1885, Page 7.
Dr. David F. Bishop, the president of the American District Steam Heating
Company and leading stockholder, dropped dead at 5 p. In. yesterday of
heart disease, age fifty -eight.
1895 "Wallace
C. Andrews," America's Successful Men of Affairs 2:19-21
President of The New York Steam Co., a man of marked vigor and enterprise,
is one of a large number of successful Ohio men, now engaged in business
in New York city. Mr. Andrews is of New England descent. He is a son of
the late Norman Andrews, who moved from Connecticut to a farm on the
Western Reserve in Ohio in 1816.
Mr. Andrews began life upon the farm, and partly by inheritance, partly in
the wholesome life of the country, acquired the physical vigor which
enabled him to perform great labors during his subsequent career. He
revealed a talent for business early in life. He succeeded from the start,
and, by the strictest economy, managed to save a little capital. When coal
was discovered in the Mahoning Valley, his brother, the late Chauncey H.
Andrews of Youngstown, O., and he, invested their savings in explorations
for coal and the purchase of mines. They developed a large number of
different properties. At first, they met with poor success, but finally
made valuable discoveries. The two men looked after details themselves,
conducted their business economically, and were able to mine coal, even
after the profits had fallen to 25 cents a ton. During the petroleum
excitement, they became operators in that industry also. They were also
promoters of many new enterprises. They built furnaces and rolling mills
in Ohio, and now and then a small railroad, and finally became the
principal stockholders in a railroad between Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
They bought several coal mining companies, working the mines themselves,
but afterwards selling them at an advance. In this way, in time, they
became the largest miners of coal in the State.
At a later day, they bought the bed of one of the old-time Ohio canals and
used it for a railroad between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, a rival to the
one they had already built. Their operations were usually
profitable, and the two brothers each gradually amassed a fortune. With
other capitalists, they finally secured a large area of coal lands in the
Hocking Valley in Ohio, and were interested in the purchase of The Hocking
Valley Railroad and its connecting lines and in the transaction by which
the roads were consolidated and the lands purchased. The schemes of Mr.
Andrews were usually started with comparatively little capital, but the
projector threw his whole energy into development, secured the investment
of outside capital, made his projects profitable, and then often sold his
interests. By reinvesting rapidly, working somewhat with borrowed money,
making use of his more valuable securities as collateral, he has succeeded
remarkably in the acquisition of wealth.
Mr. Andrews is one of the promoters of the original Standard Oil Co. and
was a director of the company for a long period of years and up to the
formation of the Trust. He is yet a large stockholder in the
company. One of the most important of his enterprises is The New York
Steam Co., a concern which supplies steam for heat and power by
underground pipes in various sections of New York city, and has initiated
a new era in the management of office buildings, by enabling their
proprietors to dispense with the annoyances attending the production of
steam in their own premises. Mr. Andrews is president of the company, and
has managed its affairs with signal ability and success. He was lately
president of The Standard Gas Light Co. of New York and is its largest
stockholder. He is a director in many local corporations, a man of unusual
business sagacity, of great power of application, and untiring energy, and
his large fortune is entirely the product of constructive talent and
commendable business methods. The Ohio Society of this city has enrolled
him as one of its members from the beginning.
1905 "Franchise
granted to Economy Light, Fuel & Power Company," October 16,
1905, Revised Charter and Ordinances of the City of Lockport
No rights conferred to the Economy Light, Fuel & Power Company
shall be operataive unless said company acquire the underground heating
system now in operation in the city and continue to operate the heating
plant under the grants of this franchise for its term.
1905 "Franchise
of Lockport Gas & Electric Light Company," October 23, 1905, Revised
Charter and Ordinances of the City of Lockport
For furnishing steam on the north side of the Erie canal within said
city of Lockport.
1907 Public
Service Commission, Second District, December 21, 1907
Lockport Light, Heat and Power Company authorized to acquire Economy
Light, Fuel and Power Company and Lockport Gas & Electric Light
Company.
1909 "System
of the Lockport Light, Heat & Power Company," Electrical
World 53:1077-1079 (May 6, 1909)
The Economy Light, Fuel & Power Company was organized in 1905 to take
over the local steam-heating business of the American District Steam
Company. In this business there had been invested a large amount of money
for a central steam-generating plant and an expensive distribution
system. In 1905 the idea was conceived that the steam produced at a
properly constructed central station could be utilized in producing
electrical energy for lighting and power purposes and that the exhaust
steam from the engines could be utilized for heating. Accordingly the
company obtained a local franchise and prepared to enter the field of
electric lighting. A lively warfare ensued between the two companies and
the Lockport Gas & Electric Light Company began to engage in the
business of supplying steam heat.
The company has between six and seven miles of underground steam mains
supplying steam for heating to approximately 12,000,000 cu. ft. of space
in residences, churches, schools, public buildings and business houses,
the number of customers being about 500. The first underground steam
construction was installed in 1876 and has since that time been extended
every year. During the past seven or eight years the old construction was
taken up and the present standardized type of construction, known as the
improved Holly system, was put down under the direction of the contractor,
the American District Steam Company. At the time of this reconstruction
the mains were also increased in size with a view of their being operated
in connection with the electric light and power plant. The exhaust steam
due to the operation of the engines is fully utilized during the period
from the last of September until about the first of June, for heating. The
steam is sold strictly by meter. what is known as the Simplex condensation
meter being used. The buildings are fitted in the ordinary way, either for
one or two pipe steam or for the atmospheric system, or the steam is used
to heat water through the use of the American District Steam Company's
design of hot-water heaters, where hot-water heating is desired in any
building. Steam is also used in heating of water for plunge or
shower baths and for general domestic use in the same manner. The
pressure carried in the underground mains ranges from 1 lb. to 7 lb.,
depending upon the outside temperature, wind velocity and humidity.
1914 "Reminiscence and the Early Day Struggle of Central Station Steam Heating," by John Walsh
1929 Public
Service Commission, Second District, December 5, 1929
An order made by the Public Service Commission on December 5, 1929,
permitted the Lockport Light, Heat and Power Company to transfer its
franchises, works and system used in connection with the sale of
electricity, gas and steam to the New York State Electric and Gas
Corporation.
1948 Annual
Report of the Public Service Commission for the year ended December
31, 1948, Volume 2.
Pages 662: New York State Electric & Gas Corporation
1949 Annual
Report of the Public Service Commission for the year ended December
31, 1949, Volume 2.
Pages 684: New York State Electric & Gas Corporation
1950 Annual
Report of the Public Service Commission for the year ended December
31, 1950, Volume 2.
Pages 686: New York State Electric and Gas
1964 "Central Steam Heating Only 1 Holly Invention," Lockport Union-Sun & Journal, October 21, 1964, Page 22. | also here |
1964 "Have
you heard!," District Heating 50(2):67 (October 1964)
Lockport, New York
The Company has announced plans to close its steam plant and discontinue
its steam heating service in Lockport on June 15, 1966.
Mr. John C. Miller, Lockport District Manager, made the announcement in a
letter to 159 residential and commercial customers affected, and to
officials of the Harrison Radiator Division, which uses steam at its
downtown plant.
Mr. Miller said operation of the plant has been unprofitable for years,
despite all efforts to reduce costs through changes in operations and
facilities.
The Company has filed a petition with the Public Service Commission
requesting authority to discontinue the steam plant operation. The Company
will furnish steam for two more heating seasons to give customers adequate
time to investigate alternate heating sources and make the necessary
installation of equipment.
Company specialists have surveyed the heating requirements of the
customers involved. They will meet with each customer and if requested,
will assist in forming plans for economical conversion to other forms of
heating.
The Company has raised its steam rates several times, but the plant is
still operating at a loss. The present charge for steam heating is
considerably higher than for other types of heating and even another
substantial increase in rates would not make retention of the plant
feasible, Mr. Miller said.
He listed the following as among the factors which have made the steam
heating operation unprofitable: (1) A decreasing number of customers; (2)
Changed economic conditions; (3) Rising costs of supplying steam,
including maintenance; (4) Decreases in the costs of heating sources. [The
shutdown was delayed until June 15, 1969.]
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