R.E.A.
Author: Ralph Roggenbuck
This abbreviation
actually means Rural
Electrification
Administration; which
doesn’t mean much any more.
In the summer of 1952 on the
plains of northwestern North
Dakota; it was the main
topic of any conversation.
This meant the farmers were
actually going to have
usable electricity.
Electricity isn’t
appreciated by most of us. We take it as normal as
breathing. It really isn’t! The first 10 years of my life
was WITHOUT IT! I can actually appreciate the things that
most take for granted! WE were among the more fortunate of
the rural families. We had a 6 volt system of lights in the
house.
The entire system consisted of the “Wincharger” wind
powered generator that was on a tower on top of the
grainery. This was basically a car generator that the
propeller turned on a tower that could rotate. The propeller
was a homemade one. I suppose the original had expired long
before I knew anything about this rig.
It had a pair of heavy
insulated wires running down the wall; semi-attached. At
the bottom the wires were of unequal length. At the ends of
each of these was about a 2”, strong spring clamp; for
attaching the batteries. I remember needing both hands to
attach them.
The batteries were rotated from the basement and the
radio in the house to the grainery as they needed to be
recharged. The entire electrical system of the farm was the
2 lights that hung from the ceiling in the kitchen. They
were loosely hung from the ceiling and the electric wires
ran up through the floor, up the wall from the basement
where the batteries were kept. Each of these lights proudly
displayed a normal looking screw in type bulb. The switches
were sloppy pull chain ones similar to ones still available.
The “Silvertone Radio” is the one thing I miss from the
per-electric days. It was marvelous; sounding better
than most of the ones that I have ever heard since. As this
was a cabinet model; it had a battery compartment built in
to it! It also had about a 14” speaker; that could shake the
house. It would rattle the dishes on the table when the Lone
Ranger’s horse, Silver, galloped!
The summer of 1953 was busy with strange trucks
running all over; not just past on the highway. We saw them
across the valley, in the railroad and road ditches, out in
fields, and even going across the pastures. These were not
the normal vans, grain boxes, stake sides, or flatbeds that
we were used to. These had strange house-like structures on
the back or else equally stranger machines attached, not
just being hauled. They were also tandem wheels which were
still rare out in the middle of nowhere. Even the few semis
that were around were single axle tractor and single axle
trailers. Later I found out they had been seismographic and
surveyor trucks.
The most interesting truck of the bunch was the ”digger
truck” This was actually a WWII military 1/2 track. It
still had the bank roller on the front. It dug about a 14”
diameter hole somewhere between 5 and 6 feet deep. It seemed
extremely fast to people used to a hand powered auger!
They had a huge tower and
auger that folded down on the back. It even had a
separate engine to power the drill rig. The other really
interesting trucks were the winch trucks. They seemed to
have a lot of them. Some were quite large and some on
pickups. Some of the larger ones had both front and back
winches with adjustable booms.
The main power lines followed the railroad tracks and
were in the highway ditches; since both ran about 500 feet
from the yard we had a good seat for the show. The feeder
lines sort of branched off here and there like tree
branches. One of the places the main line was to go was
through the middle of our spring.
There was absolutely no way to get the digger truck
even close to where 2 of the poles were to be. The water
wasn’t that deep; but, a five foot bank was about 25 feet
from where they needed to get. The bottom of the spring was
extremely soft deep sticky mud. It wanted to pull your feet
down and getting in over a foot from the edge was risky
going; not a place to bring a truck.
When they decided to put the poles in there; a fleet
of trucks was used. They ended up with 3 boom trucks
attached to the pole; holding it vertical and about 5 feet
above the water. The height was easy to get using the
hillsides to put all 3 trucks way above the pole. When it
was in the air and they had stopped for recess or something
a 4th truck showed up. This was one of the funny
ones with a small metal building on the back.
We watched 2 men get out of the back of it carrying a
small box. They put on huge overshoes, if I remember
right, they also tied ropes to their waists and to the truck
they got out of; and carefully waded into the spring. They
seemed to put something right under the pole. They then
waded to the shore with some wires trailing behind them from
the box. They now set this box on the ground about 40 feet
from the edge of the water. I had seen enough old western
movies to recognize a plunger for explosives.
As these 2 had been setting up the charge the pole
brigade had been carefully lowering the pole into the water.
They used the cable tension for the winches to keep it
vertical. When everything was set they cleared the people
out of the way. We were watching from the edge of our field
in the car.
After they had only one man left even close at all,
we saw him go to the plunger. As he pushed his handle down
we saw - water and mud fly, heard a loud “THUMP”, not a
bang, and watched the pole drop about 6 feet. We didn’t get
to see the 2nd pole put in as we were going out
to pick berries.
The wire stinging and other stuff wasn’t very
interesting to me! It was sort of just building fence with
to few wires and too tall of posts!
