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Soon after the formation of the Detroit Edison Company in 1903, the cities of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti signed a contract with the Washtenaw Light and Power Company. In 1906, a contract was drafted that would ensure light and power for both cities with the installation of 150 arc lights to be lighted throughout the night. This deal was extremely lucrative, costing $9,450 a year, an incredible amount of money in that time. Another costly contract was signed around the same time with the Ann Arbor Gas Company. For $1,694 a year, the company would provide 77 gas lights for areas requiring more lighting (Beakes 716). |
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The gas lights on the streets were somewhat of a fire hazard. Such hazards were another problem Ann Arbor residents faced at the turn of the century. In the early 1900s, a large fire destroyed a number of important buildings in the city, including the high school. The citizens of Ann Arbor were upset because the water pressure available to the firefighters had not been adequate to battle the overwhelming fire. They called for increased water pressure, which required better drainage and pumping systems to be installed throughout the city. This also required the construction of dams to control water coming from the Huron River. To address these needs, Ann Arbor called upon a company named Ayres, Lewis, Norris and May. (What is this company? How does it relate to the issue of water? -Jeff) The Detroit Edison Company helped fund the building of the original dams along the Huron River, which helped conserve highly valued coal by using water as an alternate power source. The original plans called for nine dams to be built along the river, though only seven of those were ever built. Soon after the second World War, these types of dams fell out of favor as bigger plants came to replace them because they used other sources for fuel, like oil (His 1). After the construction of the dams, the quality of the areaís water was much improved because the dams helped to filter the water. However, the quantity of water accessible was still an issue because it was difficult to supply the ever-growing city with the newly purified water. There simply was not enough to meet the needs of the city. |
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By the late 1920s, Ann Arbor citizens were extremely upset about the quality of their water. The people called for a new water facility that would handle the full purification of the water so that it would meet the sanitation standards. As more and more people began to inhabit the city, this became a more significant problem. Since the University of Michigan helped draw people to the area, the institution agreed to share the cost of the new water purification facility with the city of Ann Arbor. Educating the public was among many important steps in this process. Up until this time, Argo Pond had been used "for municipal bathing purposes," which only made the water sanitation problem worse. Sources tell of the beginning of "objectionable odors" and floating masses in the waters of Ann Arbor. Raw sewage began to pour out into the Huron River below the Fuller Street Bridge, which leads to Geddes Pond. This had a negative effect not only on the people, but also on the wildlife and all the organisms inhabiting the waterways. The public debated how to handle the problem, but prominent citizens and high-profile construction companies had difficulty finding a valid solution to rid this "high status society" of the unsanitary pollution. The solution did not consider the wishes of the lower status residents of Ann Arbor who often lived next to the water sources such as the Huron River. Because of their financial status, the lower class settlers did not have the necessary resources to pick up and move away from the sewage infested waterways and therefore were at a great disadvantage to the upper class citizens of the area. |