By 1890 many cities and towns in Massachusetts were considering either starting up their own lighting plants or purchasing the existing electric utilities that were already in their communities. Massachusetts State Law allowed this adoption and presently there are 40 consumer-owned public electric utilities in Massachusetts, many established in the 1890s.

Among these is the Hull Municipal Light Plant, a coastal community a short distance from Boston to the south. Hull is known for its famous Paragon Park, Nantasket Beach and many other attractions. The Hull Light Plant commenced operations by building a steam-operated electric station on Electric Avenue (now Edgewater Ave.) upon approval of a two-thirds majority vote of residents to establish a municipally-owned light plant in that community in 1893. The following year the Hull municipal officially began and the generation plant was completed with lines strung to customers and numerous street lamps around the town. The plant stood until sometime around the 1930s. After it was torn down the space was used to enlarge the pole yard. Consequently the town was totally dependent on the two 23kv incoming lines, adequately providing electric service. The original indoor 7kv substation (built in 1917 with two circuits leading from a private utility in Weymouth, MA) was immediately next to the Hull Light office. The office and station buildings also were completed by 1917. Each had (and still has) clay tile roofing and stucco siding. These premises continue to be meticulously well kept and are pretty much unchanged on their exteriors to this day. They are regarded by many as one of the town's historical landmarks. The outdoor 23kv to 4kv primary station was built in the 1930s when 23kv transmission came to Hull. It was no longer needed after 1980 when the town's 13.8kv primary conversion was completed (the station had been providing 4kv primary voltage). The town's 13.8kv upgrading commenced when the private power company serving Hull installed a 23 to 13.8kv step-down station at the town line. Metering was at that point for the entering the town's distribution system (approximately 5,000 customers, about 95% are residential). Large fogbowl insulators were used for these higher-voltage primary circuits; the earliest ones are brown ones from the 1960s, made by Ohio Brass. Many of the original and later ones (light gray) are still in use today. The town faces the salt water on three sides and this insulator design helps reduce contamination on them.

Hull was among the first municipals in Massachusetts to employ mercury vapor street lights. These were 400-watt fixtures made by Westinghouse (1950) and 100-watt luminaires produced by the Wheeler Reflector Company (1953). The latter were uniquely designed. Their small clear tubular lamps (like the size of a regular 6-inch showcase bulb) were mounted within a curved, crescent-shaped porcelain-enamel reflector. These were installed in several locations along frequently travelled roads. The advantages of mercury vapor lighting was longer bulb life and double the efficiency compared to filament lightbulbs. In addition these cutting-edge street lights were operated by automatic tube-powered light sensors, so they did not have to be connected to the main station on Electric Avenue for their dusk-to-dawn control.

The town's incandescent series street lighting system was manually operated (at the Electric Avenue station) through the 1950s. After then, photoelectric street lighting controls were used. The series wires upon crossarms usually were identified by blue porcelain insulators. Often large single piece porcelain insulators (in brown) were used for ending the line wire in each direction for the individual street lamp beneath. Blue porcelain insulators also were randomly used upon other circuits; the reason(s) for this are unknown. Blue glazes range from very light bluish-gray (Pinco product) to deep royal blue (Lapp). Earliest ones appear to be Ohio Brass "hats" and Pittsburg High Voltage Co. deep-groove signals.

Photographed is a close up view of one of the Light Plant's utility distribution poles along Nantasket Avenue. Paragon Park (not shown) was along the right a bit further down.

In earlier years in order to fulfill the town's growing electrical needs, the town's generation plant was supplemented by two 7 or 13 kv circuits that led from the Weymouth Light and Power Company around 1915-17. This line was built with small Thomas multipart porcelain insulators and 2-solid copper wire (6-solid copper wire was used for line taps for a small substation for Hingham Municipal Light on Main Street and another for Hingham's water pumping station). These taps were approximately half-way along the route to Hull and 6-solid copper wire was utilized from the forementioned taps to the indoor substation in Hull. The line's distance from the generation station in East Weymouth was about eight miles and the poles were pencil-topped cedars or pines with two-over-four-pin construction for all of its distance. The two incoming transmission line circuits terminated in Hull at the Light Plant facility on Electric Ave. An indoor step-down substation (now used as a large storage area adjoining the office building) was utilized for initiating several primary distribution circuits serving town customers. The indoor station kept salt spray from interfering with electrical equipment and was active until the 1930s when the outdoor 23kv to 4kv station (behind the indoor station) was completed. The forementioned lines from Weymouth also fed a portion of the Hingham Municipal Lighting Plant system with a substation half-way in between the Hull plant and East Weymouth generation facility. Thick AWG-2 hard-drawn solid copper was used from Weymouth to the tap-off substation for Hingham and AWG-6 hard-drawn solid copper remaining from approximately that point to Hull and a water pumping station in Hingham (built around 1915). That was the private utility's separate customer until the 1960s; the Hingham town municipal did not have adequate supply for their needs.

Owing to the increasing popularity of electricity, appliances and customers, this historic double circuit line serving these communities was totally rebuilt by 1940 by the New England Power Service Company to 23kv using K-frame poles in open areas and cedar poles with larger multipart insulators (Locke 1035s in reddish glaze) along roadway stretches. Much of the remaining original solid AWG-2 solid wire was replaced with heavier stranded AWG-2 hard-drawn copper conductors. Some of the 1930s poles remain today along with most of the wire from that rebuild. Photos will follow soon.

Higher voltage primary lines are seen here strung along the top crossarm with lower voltage ones beneath, A porcelain guy or "breaker" insulator along with a CD 134.4 (note its high dome and noticably short glass skirt) also is on the lower arm; separating for the two wires that led to a pole mounted street light beneath.

For more historical information and details about the lines provided electricity to Hull, MA during the early days: [id=650503924] and [id=632010497]