Utilities
Electricity, Plumbing, Telephones

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"Vernon Parish Democrat," August 12, 1920

"Big Smoke Stack Goes Up on Big Boiler -- The big boiler is nearly ready for operation. The steam engine is connected up with the steam pipe, and it will not be long now before the big brick plant will be ready for operation.

Saturday last, the big smoke stack was raised and seated. This was a big job, but Ole Synoground and A.B. Wolfe, with a crew of huskies planned the work with the least amount of risk and the stack went up without a hitch.

The stack itself is 68 feet long and is set up about 10 feet from the ground. The top of the stack is nearly 80 feet high.

Much piping work was necessary. A tank had to be taken down and erected at the boiler and connected up. Little more work remains to be done.

Now that the stack is up the balance of the shed over the boiler can be completed."

"Llano Colonist," May 27, 1922

"Loutrel, C. Shutt, Dover Cryer, Warren Fread, and Truman Benthal are all putting up electric poles, wires, etc. and preparing to wire the houses and give us the electric lights we have been looking forward to."

"Llano Colonist," July 1, 1922

"The Colony is pretty-well spread out. The office is in one place, the hotel another place and the homes scattered like in all little towns. These places could not all be together, anyhow. There are too many and the place is growing... Will someone give the colony about three miles of wire and a dozen telephone sets? If you can give only a part of this, please do so and make their work more effective and efficient. They are working for you -- for all of us -- and we owe it to them to properly equip them."

"Llano Colonist," August 26, 1922

"I have received a message... from J.B. Mars, of New Mexico containing a check for Ten Dollars, to be applied upon the fund being raised to install an up-to-date telephone system in the colony. You see, Comrade Mars expects to join us soon, and it would be much nicer if we might have this telephone system in operation, along with our electric lights and the water system which we hope to have before a great while... when Comrade Mars and others come to make this their home."

"Llano Colonist," December 19, 1927

"[The power plant] consists of a double unit of power: one being two large 150 horse-power boilers and steam engine with electric generator attached, the other a Diesel oil engine with another electric generator. Either or both of these units can be used."

"Llano Colonist," December 31, 1927

"The new pump house being built on the bank of the creek just north of the general office is almost completed having the siding and roof yet to go on and Shoemaker is rushing that part; yet Homer, Ted, John and J. Maxwell have the pump up, wires stretched and connected with the electric motor that at this time is pumping water, giving a sufficient supply to the cooling tower at the ice plant, also, supplying the laundry and steam plants."

"Llano Colonist," February 4, 1928

"Power is produced by a 100 horse power double diesel engine with a 120 horse power steam engine in the same room and less than 100 feet from a large double boiler steam plant which furnishes power for the veneer mill with its seven ton peeling machine..."

"Llano Colonist," May 19, 1928

"The boiler [at the Rice Ranch] has been fired and proved satisfactory, making steam at a pressure of 150 pounds upon a square inch... driving the powerful rotary pump which is throwing six gallons of water per second from the bottom of the well 300 feet deep."

"Llano Colonist," September 15, 1928

"The power plant makes the colony one of the most modern in this part of Louisiana since it provides electricity to all the industries and homes. Three crews keep this plant going, along with the ice plant, 24 hours per day. There is also a man in charge of running and maintaining the power lines from the power plant to each of the buildings.

We have two units of power - a Fairbanks-Morris twin Diesel engine connected up to an electric generator that does most of the work at this time of the year; also, there is a steam engine and generator that can give the same service and power at any time we wish to change from the oil engine. In case we need more power we can use both units at the same time."

"Newllano is one hundred per cent electrified in its homes. In this respect at the head of the list in Louisiana."

"Llano Colonist," November 24, 1928

"High hauls the dry wood to the boiler room where Tefteller keeps the fires going that furnish the steam for the power plant and veneer factory."

"Llano Colonist," February 16, 1929

"This evening, while acting as taxi-driver for the Glee Club and High-school boys, who were being entertained at Leesville, I enjoyed the view of Newllano at night with its hundred percent electric light service. The lights twinkled all over the Campus and village from the industrial section on the east to the Library and Schools at the west and from the Printery on the north to the "Fifth Avenue" region on the south. Electric light as such, is not unusual but when it is remembered that these lights shine in the CITY OF CO-OPERATION, then it becomes thrilling."

"Llano Colonist," March 16, 1929

"This morning Ted and Homer were busy placing concrete foundations for the pumphouse and fashioning a great structure for pulling up from the driven well some sections of pipe that need replacing. This well, down about 500 feet, is the present source of Llano's water supply. It is pumped by motor into the big tank on the highest point of the Colony village, then piped to the homes, hotel, ice-plant, laundry and various places needed. This water supply is entirely safe from the health point of view but will soon be inadequate for our growing uses."

"Llano Colonist," August 24, 1929

"Homer Loutrel and Earl Swenson have been two busy fellows the last few days making some extra cooling apparatus for the Diesel engine which runs many hours in freezing ice and furnishes us with electricity. We have been getting some pretty hot weather... which has brought us good trade, in fact we have been selling all of our own output of ice which is ten tons a day and have been buying from two to three extra from another plant in order to supply all our customers.

Tom Farrell is doing the firing and keeps the cut-off saw engine going as well as the big Ridgeway at the electric plant. Steam from these boilers is also being used at the laundry, candy and canning factory sometimes. The veneer mill is run by another engine calling for greater steam power."

"Comrade Sturman... is under-taking the job of running a pipe line from our planing mill to our boiler in a way that will transfer all of the saw dust and shavings from the planing mill machinery over to the boiler to be burned through an automatic feeder. This means the placing of a blower in the planing mill and running a pipe line from the planing mill to a "cyclone" that will be on the receiving end of the pipe line where the shavings and sawdust will be collected and from that it will be conveyed directly into the dutch oven where it will be fed automatically and burned with very little work by the fireman."

"Llano Colonist," November 2, 1929

"Sturman has enough of the blower pipe finished to carry the shavings from the moulding machine, that is making our siding, to the cyclone, so more progress is in evidence over there."

"Llano Colonist," November 29, 1930

"South of the warehouse and gristmill is the large boiler shed with its iron chimney shaft. Power is conveyed over-head to a powerful saw-mill where the logs are sawn into shape for our.... purposes."

"Llano Colonist," December 6, 1930

"...south of [the hotel] is the head of the well with its automatic pumping plant, pumping water into a great tank standing high above. There is an indicator on the outside of this tank showing the level of the water. This is so arranged that it starts and stops pumping as the level of the water may require. The elevation of this tank is such that it provides us with a good supply at our homes."

"Llano Colonist," March 14, 1931

"The steam plant was entirely burned down in a fire that also consumed the new bath house and sewing department."

"Llano Colonist," October 17, 1931

"This morning, Oct. 1st, the mail didn't bring me a handful of bills. There was no bill for rent... [on the house] that my good wife and I are using. There was no bill from the Hotel for the food that we... consumed during the month. All month long I have enjoyed the radio, used electricity up to ... midnight practically every night, and no bill for the use of the 'juice' will be presented to me..."

"Llano Colonist," April 16, 1932

"Comrade Jaufroid... keeps up the appearance and cleanliness of public sanitation in white-washing, purifying and cleaning of outhouses, lavatories, etc."

"Llano Colonist," May 7, 1932

"A new switch is being installed at the power plant. The fact that the diesel is on the job is going to be a real satisfaction to a lot of people, the wood choppers particularly, the wood haulers and the firemen. It is nothing but hard work, every step of the way firing a boiler with wood, in order to make steam.

The 100 horse power Diesel will displace some eight men, and relieve two trucks and do better work than the steam boiler and the powerful Ridgeway engine, and cost not a fraction of what the laborious way does."

"Llano Colonist," June 18, 1932

"Over in the boiler room, which is just marked off by two big brick walls at the side, and two big stacks pointing toward the sky, you might find Caves and Busick camping on the fuel piles that represent the sun-power transformed into wood. They think nothing of burning up in fifteen minutes a pile of wood that it may have taken half a century to make. But they have the big fire-boxes there, topped by the steamboilers where the water is vaporized, and from which it shoots through the pipes over to the engine-room.

The big Diesel engine was resting this morning, and the plant was running on steam power. Hooked up to the engine is the generator, which stands about 6 feet high, and is just a mass of industrial copper wires that seem to be all tangled up. But this is what happens: In those generators are some electro magnets, which become powerful as the machine begins to turn, and a part of the current is sent along the wires, which are wound about the poles of the magnets. Those tangled wires are just portions of "circuits", made up of copper wires. These circuits or wires which will carry an electric current, are made to cut across the magnetic fields of the magnets. And for some reason, which is not entirely known yet, that action results in the setting up -- or drawing forth -- of an electric current in each of these circuits.

Then these circuits are all connected to a common conductor and the current thus gathered into one circuit is led off of the machine on the wires which you see, attached to two little arms on the frame of the generator and which have a friction contact with two rings on its shaft. One of these is called the "positive" and the other the "negative" post of the current. But it takes the power of the steam to turn the assembly of wires. The larger and more powerful the magnets, the more numerous the circuits of wire and conductors, the more rapid the turn of the assembly of circuits in the wires. "

"Llano Colonist," March 25, 1933

"The colony internal telephone system was installed early in March by Homer Loutrel, chief electrician."

"Llano Colonist," June 3, 1933

"The rain isn't over yet, and between the showers we see Engineer Ralph Fields and Frank Brough coaxing two large concrete abuttments into place at the water well near the hotel. These will serve as foundations for an air compressor and motor. In the distance we recognize Homer Loutrel and his crew, playing the Anvil Chorus on a lot of 2 1/2-inch pipe which they are taking apart and tossing around with the intention of substituting it for the four-inch pipe now in the well hole. They figure on revamping the entire pumping installation, and taking the present pump out to install the compressor. This compressor will send air 150 feet into the earth, and force out a more copious supply of water than the old pump was capable of doing. This will enable the gardeners to irrigate their plots more generously during the dry spells, without creating too great a load for the pumping facilities. Homer is engineering the job with a view to interrupting the water supply for the shortest possible time during the changeover. Several days will be required to make the complete change."

"Llano Colonist," June 24, 1933 (Story of Llano)

"On August 6th (1931) the cyclone blower, for carrying shavings and sawdust from the planing mill to the power house was completed, thus installing an apparatus which saved one-half of the work of firing the boilers when the planing mill was in operation."

"Llano Colonist," August 26, 1933

"Whirlwinds of tempestuous fire roar through the boilers as the incandescent shavings send up sheets of flame. Walter Gaulke and Harry Weatherwax take a moment to catch their breath as a fresh supply of shavings come through the cyclone from the planing mill. Boiler operation and firing has been put on an economical and dependable schedule, thanks to our industrial foreman. Gaulke, Weatherwax and Fred Busick are the steady firemen; they are doing a difficult job as well. Weatherwax, known familiarly as "Wax" is a piano-tuner by trade, and it's hard for him to forget his piano terminology. He says that he'll soon be firing the "upright" instead of the "concert grands", meaning thereby the small recently erected vertical boiler instead of the large power boilers.

Further improvements are being made at the boilers in the way of facilitating the handling and storage of fuel. Besides fuel economy, handiness is being emphasized. Large piles of brick have been moved and a big space has been cleared between the boilers and power plant. Here ample supplies of dry fuel will be stored. This fuel will require very little handling as it can be brought directly to the boiler doors by a small truck on an inclined track. The track is now under construction and Tom Farrell is spiking the rails to the ties today."

"Llano Colonist," January 20, 1934

"Some new privies are being built to take the place of those old unsightly ones about the Colony, and Comrades Ogden and Howell are doing a good job. We hope that our oil well will soon come in, and that we'll be able to install septic tanks or a complete sewage system for the entire colony, thereby increasing convenience and comfort tremendously. Then the septic tanks like those at the hotels and hospital will not be the exception, but rather the rule."

"Llano Colonist," October 3, 1936

"A federal man on sanitation, Mr. Geary, gave us a call, the outcome of which is that our toilets all over the Colony -- sixty-five of them -- will be rebuilt and made to conform with the Louisiana state laws...

...George Jensen is hauling some ceiling material from storage under the main office for use of the colony toilets to conform to U.S. Government requirements. This commission, a branch of the PWA has a small force of men at work under a foreman now getting out material at the old Busick house. This is quite a large undertaking, there being something like sixty eight toilets to be replaced, and a heavier crew will be placed in the field. The colony has been systematically mapped out and each section will be taken in order, the government men doing all the work, digging the pits and erecting the buildings, while all that is required of the colony is the furnishing of nails and building material. The actual outlay on the part of the colony will be negligible as the construction materials will be salvaged lumber from discarded structures. Llano, like neighboring towns, not aspiring to a regular sewage system is glad to have the next best plan properly instituted."