| Additional Information: | Intersection gable roofs; rectangular window filled with wood panels.
This small brick powerhouse displays a simple gabled roofed vernacular building form devoid of historic ornament. A frame gable roofed extension with rectangular window and door openings was added to the front of the building.
The small brick power plant was constructed, according to the Sanborn Insurance map, sometimw between 1911 and 1922. It probably was an improvement added after the Minnesota Light and Power Co. purchased the hydroplant and electric utility company from the Newton Company. The Newton Company, who operated a paper mill on the premises in the 19th century, produced electric power for sale at this site beginning at the turn of the century. The Newtons sold the utility operation to Minnesota Light and Pwer around 1917. The hydrodam [separate record] and plant [separate record] at Perch Lake was sold a few years later in 1923 to Northern States Power Co. The adjacent concrete dam was designed and constructed during the year 1924-1925 by the Byllesby Company engineers, who serviced the electric plants and hydrodams for the Standard Gas and Electric Company, the parent company of the local Northern States Power Company.
The Minnesota Light and Power Company House does not meet the criteria of the NRHP for engineering or historical significance because of its lack of integrity.
The Wisconsin and Minnesota Light and Power Building was probably built sometime between 1917 and 1922.
Municipal electric power began in Sparta in 1889, but it was not until 1913 or so that an electric light power plant at a dam site was located on the La Crosse River. For years thereafter, this water power site procued munipal electric power for the City of Sparta and the nearby vicinity. The electricity supplied power for machinery, for street lighting, and for commercial and residential lighting needs. George Newton was the general manager of the Newton Sons Electric Co., which erected this earlier dam.
The Newtons owned and operated the electric company until 1917, when they sold the company to Wisconsin-Minnesota Light and Power Co. This company probably improved the dame site and built the present building next to the dam there. In 1924, Wisconsin-Minnesota Light and Power Co. changed its name to Northern States Power (NSP). Thereafter NSP reconstructed the dam and turbine house on the Lae Crosse River. Northern States Power has continuously used the La Crosse River dam site for hydroelectric power. The present dam site and hydro-electric power buildings associated with the site are NSP properties in use since the mid-1920s.
The Wisconsin and Minnesota Light and Power Building gains local historical significance under Criterion A in association with the Utilities:Electric topic of the Commerce Theme. The house was part of an important municipal power improvements that served the community's needs. The Wisconsin and Minnesota Light and Power Building's period of significance ranges from its erection circa 1917 to an indeterminable closing date. |
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| Bibliographic References: | (A) Sanborn-Perris Insurance Maps, 1889, 1894, 1900, 1911, 1922, 1931.
(B) Richards, Randolph A., History of Monroe County, Wisconsin: Past and Present, Including an Account of the Cities, Towns and Villages of the County. Chicago: C.F. Cooper & Co., 1912, pp. 270 and 275-276.
(C) Sparta Democrat June 1, 1899.
(D) Unknown Newspapers, "Sparta, Wisconsin: A Northern Town with a 'Western Feel,' of Pines and Bluffs," N.D.
(E) Barney, Tyler Davis, "A History of the Growth of Sparta, Wisconsin, 1850 to 1890." B.A. Thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1922, p. 38.
(F) Gregory, John G., West Central Wisconsin: A History, Vol. 2, Indianapolis: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1933, p. 710.
(G) Koehler, Lyle P., From Frontier Settlement to Self-Conscious American Community: A History of One Rural Village (Sparta, Wisconsin) in the Nineteenth Century. Evansville, Indiana: Unigraphic, Inc., 1977, p. 99.
(H) Jones, Ida Lucille, "A History of Sparta, Wisconsin." B.A. Thesis. University of Wisconsin, 1915, p. 13.
(I) Sparta Centennial Celebration Committee, Sparta Incorporation City Centennial: 1883-1983 (1983), Unpublished Pamphlet, p. 44.
(J) "Ice Harvesting," Monroe County Historical Society, Vol. III, no. 1 (June 1979):1.
(K) Sparta Herald December 28, 1920; August 7, 1923; August 14, 1924.
(L) McDonald, F., Let There Be Light, 1881-1955 (Madison: American History Research center, 1957), pp. 188-189. |
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