A flour mill owning an electric utility? Well, this was common in the early days in parts of the midwest, but here is a case of one operating in Oregon. The Yamhill Milling-Power & Light Co, of Sheridan, Yamhill County, Oregon building is shown in this photo. Sheridan and Yamhill County was and still is largely rural western OR. farm country so the milling company owning a power plant is logical. I am sure they wanted electricity to power the large motors in the mill and why not get the extra revenue by serving the town with lights?

The power and light ventures by this company were purchase early on by the Yamhill Electric Co. which became a county-wide (and then some) power utility and built a transmission line serving all of it's towns using now scarce gray M-3158 multiparts. The Yamhill company was merged into Portland General Electric Co. (PGE) in 1938, and now serves the county today. Looking at this photo, I get a sense of how simple things were in the horse and buggy days, but am fooled by the reality that it took very hard work to accomplish anything in those days with no modern convieniances! Photo from Yamhill County Historical Society.