Many of the advantages we take for granted today were only beginning to unfold when The Connecticut Light and Power Company was formed on August 9, 1917. It was still the era of the trolley and the horse-and-buggy. Most highways were narrow dirt roads, the airplane was brand new, and many applications of electricity on which modern society is built were not even imagined. Electricity was used primarily for operating streetcars, for illumination, and for industrial purposes.

An early CL&P office

CL&P was instrumental in developing the statewide network of transmission and distribution lines which helped expand the Connecticut economy. The system owes much to the vision of a lawyer and powerful politician, J. Henry Roraback, the founder of CL&P and its president from 1925 until his death in 1937. His judgment and ability were key factors in the founding and successful expansion of the company.

Even before CL&P was organized, Roraback had plans for a system which would be able to supply the entire state. As early as 1905, initial plans were laid for what was ultimately to be built into a statewide power system. In that year, The Rocky River Power Company was organized by Roraback and permitted by charter to develop the power resources of the Rocky River in western Connecticut, just as the right to develop power in the Housatonic River had been granted to The Housatonic Power Company. In 1911, he drew a power map of the western part of the state on which the proposed main transmission lines were so soundly conceived that years later, when high-voltage transmission lines were built, they very closely followed his original plans.

In 1917, The Rocky River Power Company changed its name to The Connecticut Light and Power Company. At the same time, The Housatonic Power Company, The United Electric Light and Water Company (which served Waterbury, New Britain, Norwalk, and Greenwich), and The Seymour Electric Company were acquired. Through this process, The Connecticut Light and Power Company system was born. In 1929, The Eastern Connecticut Power Company, an organization of local power plants in the eastern portion of the state, was merged into CL&P.

A Legacy of Hydropower

Building Bulls Bridge

In the earlier years, waterpower provided a large share of the energy for generating electricity, due to the increasing use of the Housatonic River as a prime power source. When CL&P was organized, the Bulls Bridge plant in New Milford was already in operation, its 6,000-kilowatt capacity comprising about a quarter of the total CL&P system capacity. Built by a predecessor company in 1903, Bulls Bridge was the first large hydroelectric plant on the river and one of the first in the United States. Bulls Bridge was also among the first to transmit electricity at high voltage (33,500 volts) any great distance. The line, completed in 1904, ran 26 miles to Waterbury. It was such an outstanding pioneering development that it attracted inspection by electrical engineers from all over the United States.

The Rocky River hydroelectric station, which went into operation in 1929, was the nation's first large-scale application of pumped-storage electrical generation. A small, meandering stream was transformed by a dam into Lake Candlewood, the largest lake in Connecticut. It took two years to construct the immense earthen dam. Lake Candlewood is actually a huge storage basin for the generation of hydroelectric power. It stores the water used to run the Rocky River Station; the water flows through a huge pipe called a penstock which runs down a hillside for more than 1,000 feet to the generating station below. When flow in the Housatonic River is high, the station pumps water uphill to the lake for storage, usually at night or otherwise when the demand for power is low. When the river is low, water can be released from the lake to generate electricity at the power plant and to raise the river level so that the same water in time of lower river flow can be used to generate more electricity at the downstream stations, Stevenson and Shepaug. The efficient coordination of these three plants' operations produces 1.3 kilowatt-hours for each kilowatt-hour used to pump water into Lake Candlewood.

Efficient Expansion

After CL&P was formed, the development of the statewide electric power grid began with the consolidation of many local companies, the construction of large central generating stations, and the extensions of transmission lines to carry the power from the plants. Obsolete and inefficient units were dismantled and replaced with new, large power houses, transmission lines, and substations. Distribution systems in the cities and towns were rebuilt.

In 1917, CL&P had 43,436 customers and annual electric sales of 143,000,000 kilowatt-hours. By 1937, CL&P had around 2,300 employees, 160,790 customers, and electric sales of 646,000,000 kilowatt-hours producing $15,200,000 in revenues. More than half a million of Connecticut's population satisfied their electric needs through CL&P's $98,903,000 investment in plant and equipment. The electrification of Connecticut was occurring at a rapid pace in all segments of society - industrial, commercial, municipal, residential, and farm.

Due to the significant efficiencies of the larger CL&P system, lower rates were brought to areas formerly served by small companies. As the system grew and efficiency increased, CL&P was able to make further rate reductions. In 1926, for example, CL&P acquired the companies serving Meriden, Woodbury, Westport, New Milford, and some neighboring towns. The charge for 100 kilowatt-hours in Meriden before the merger was $9; after the merger, it was $5.80 - an immediate reduction of 35 percent. Other small-town companies' charges for that amount ranged up to $15.

A Period of Complex Growth

CL&P as it exists today is made up of more than 60 former operating companies. The complex manner in which CL&P grew is reflected in the career of Richard F. Gretsch, who retired from CL&P in 1973 as a division manager.

CL&P office, Norwalk, CT, 1928

Gretsch began his utility career as a cadet engineer for Brooklyn Edison Company in New York in 1930. After World War II, he joined The Danbury and Bethel Gas and Electric Light Company and was elected president in 1948.

At that time, the company served Danbury, Bethel, Brookfield, and Newtown. It had been incorporated in 1854 as the Danbury Gas Light Company and commenced operation in 1857. In 1944 it was purchased by the Derby Gas & Electric Company, but continued to operate as a separate entity. Then, in 1953, it was consolidated with The Derby Gas and Electric Company and the Wallingford Gas Light Company to form The Housatonic Public Service Company. Gretsch was elected executive vice president of the enlarged Housatonic Public Service Company (HPS).

Derby Gas and Electric had begun its existence in 1859, after the state Legislature granted a charter in the boroughs of Birmingham (now Derby) and Ansonia; its name at that time was the Birmingham Gas Light Company. In 1886, the company received an amendment to its charter to permit it to generate and provide electricity to the area it was then supplying with gas. The first electric streetlighting in Derby came with the installation of 12 lights on Derby Avenue in 1887. In 1935, the Derby Gas & Electric Corporation, a Delaware holding company, was formed. At the same time, it took over the Wallingford Gas Light Company, started in 1881.

HPS grew as further consolidation occurred. In 1961, it was merged into CL&P and Gretsch became the Housatonic Division manager in charge of the company's activities from New Milford to Derby - a territory far larger than he had managed as head of Danbury and Bethel Gas and Electric Light Company.

In 1937, Roraback was succeeded as president of CL&P by Charles L. Campbell. In 1948, Campbell became chairman and Robert H. Knowlton became president, a position he held until 1952, when Campbell retired and was succeeded by Knowlton. At the same time, Sherman R. Knapp became president. An electrical engineer, Knapp joined CL&P in 1928. He began in the Operating and Sales Departments and rose to national prominence in the industry. In 1966, as chairman of CL&P, Knapp was one of the three chief executives who entered into the Northeast Utilities affiliation.

The Eventful Fifties

CL&P's corporate offices had been at 36 Pearl Street, Hartford, for many years and briefly--from 1950 to 1952--at its Freight Street building in Waterbury. In 1952, CL&P opened its new and distinctive corporate headquarters - an administration building and a service building - located in Berlin on Route 15, the Berlin Turnpike. The administration building was a two-story brick structure of modified Georgian Colonial design. Seen from above, it looked like a giant "T."

CL&P office

Berlin, CT, administration building

The first of several major expansions was completed in 1959 when a north wing was added to the administration building. Later additions expanded it to form a hollow square. Other buildings were erected on the grounds so that the original building is now part of a large complex. When the affiliation occurred in 1966, HELCO'S Wethersfield facility became the site of NU's executive offices. After a major expansion of the Berlin building in 1969, the executives offices were moved there and it became the General Offices of NU.

The Flood of 1955

The worst natural disasters to strike Connecticut since the 1938 hurricane occurred in 1955, when two floods ravaged facilities throughout the state. In August, the Naugatuck, Mad, and Quinebaug Rivers overflowed their banks, following torrential rains. Hardest hit were the Naugatuck Valley, Winsted, and Putnam, where there were complete interruptions of electric and gas service. Normal communications were cut off and ordinary routes were impassible, but the company's crews were on the scene quickly and electric service was rapidly restored to all customers.

Flooding in downtown Hartford

In October, three days of continuous rain swelled the Norwalk River over its banks, disrupting service in the greater Norwalk area. The restoration of gas service in the flood-stricken communities on both occasions presented far greater problems than the restoration of electric service. Meters had to be turned off and lines purged of all water and air.

When gas again filled distribution mains, servicemen had to visit every house, check pilots and appliances, and turn on each meter. While the two floods caused more than $1,000,000 in property damage to the company's facilities, CL&P employees, working alongside crews brought in from neighboring and out-of-state utilities, worked diligently and restored service as fast as possible. Further details about gas operations are given later in the section on NU's gas business.

By 1956, CL&P served about two-thirds of the state by area and about 39 percent by population. Operating revenues had increased to $70,000,000 a year, earned from 300,000 electric customers and 85,000 gas customers.

Economic Expansion

In the early 1950s, nearly a dozen New England electric companies, including CL&P, HELCO, and WMECO, formed the Yankee Atomic Electric Company to jointly build a nuclear plant, Yankee Rowe, which began operating in 1960 in Rowe, Massachusetts. It ably demonstrated the feasibility of commercial nuclear power generation, so, in 1962, CL&P, HELCO, WMECO, and other New England utilities formed a company to build Connecticut's first nuclear power plant, Connecticut Yankee. CY entered commercial operation in 1968, three years after the start of construction.

Gas operations were likewise expanding with the introduction of natural gas to Connecticut in 1952 and the economies it provided. Brought via pipeline from the Southwest, it had a higher heat content per cubic foot than the various mixtures of manufactured gas used until then. Throughout the 1950s, the post-war economic boom continued. CL&P's service area now included more than 70 percent of the state by area, but only one of the four largest cities, Waterbury. As economic growth led a population shift from the cities to the suburbs, CL&P was the principal beneficiary of that movement. People were urged by the advertising symbol Reddy Kilowatt and CL&P's Electric Sales Department to "live better electrically" in all-electric Gold Medallion Homes. By 1962, annual operating revenues were above $100,000,000, with gas sales providing 17 percent of that. The company had 376,000 electric customers and about 110,000 gas customers. Residential electric sales provided nearly half of the total electric revenue.

CL&P and Industrial Development

Utilities have always played a major role in the development of their areas' commercial, financial, and cultural activities. Again, the career of Richard F. Gretsch illustrates this fact. Upon coming to the Danbury area, Gretsch became involved in its civic life through the Danbury Industrial Corporation (DIC), which was founded in 1918 by leaders of the business community to encourage a variety of industry and commerce in the Danbury community. Danbury was known as the Hat City because of its numerous hat factories, but hatmaking - its single industry - was an ailing industry upon whose economic life the city depended. The DIC wanted to attract new, diversified industry to the area.

After World War II, the hat industry began to fade rapidly. One company after another closed. The city was faced with a real economic problem. To solve it, the DIC joined forces with the Chamber of Commerce, banks, realtors, and government to develop the Danbury region in a planned, orderly manner away from dependence on just one industry.

Gretsch became a director of the DIC in 1949, president in 1963, and chairman of the board in 1975. It was, he said, a "volunteer, unpaid weekend job." Under his leadership, the DIC expanded its influence from the Greater Danbury area to the region west of the Connecticut River. The DIC was instrumental in bringing many new businesses to the region, notably major corporations such as IBM and Union Carbide. As the coastal towns to the south zoned out industry in favor of maintaining their residential character, the DIC encouraged it to come to the greater Danbury area. This, in turn, translated into greatly expanded activity for the Housatonic Division of CL&P, which Gretsch managed.

The Farm Sales Department

Farming and agriculture were also an important market for the electric utility industry. Rural electrification led CL&P to create a Farm Sales Department which encouraged farmers to electrify their property. CL&P retiree David N. Stiles, who was manager of Farm Sales for many years, was part of the effort to educate farming families in the use of electricity to increase farm production.

In the 1940s and '50s, Stiles worked with the 4-H, Grange, vocational education teachers, and other groups to show farmers how to wire their buildings, use electric motors and controls, and otherwise electrify agricultural operations. When the last farm in CL&P territory was connected to the power grid in the early 1950s, it was celebrated in the media as a major accomplishment. So was the first all-electric farm, the Bass Brothers Farm near Willimantic, which even used electricity to heat the farmhouse. Another notable Farm Sales Department achievement was winning the Edison Electric Institute award for CL&P in 1972 for electrifying the Pinchbeck Greenhouses in Guilford. Sodium lights were installed to extend the growing season for roses. As a result, flower production doubled and proved a great economic success for the grower.

The Early Sixties

In 1960, CL&P put into operation a unique, underground electric dispatching center designed to withstand natural disasters and the danger of radioactive fallout in the event of nuclear war. The center, located in Southington, Connecticut, became the nerve center of the company's generation and transmission system. When electric energy dispatch and transmission became regional in scope in 1964 with the creation of the New England Power Pool, the center became known as the Connecticut Valley Electric Exchange (CONVEX). Also in 1964, the company's Board of Directors advanced Sherman Knapp to chairman and elected Paul V. Hayden to succeed Knapp as president.

Connecticut Valley Electric Exchange, underground dispatchers' room, 1967