ELECTRICAL CONSTRUCTION & MAINTENANCE COMPANY 1870 TO ? ? ?

Reprinted from "Crown Jewels of the Wire", April 2000, page 23

It has always been common knowledge that Electrical Construction & Maintenance Company of San Francisco, California was formed in December 1870 and continued in business until June of 1877 when they were purchased by the new company, California Electrical Works. At this point, it was believed to be the end of E.C. & M. Company completely, but was it really the end?

I have been collecting, and doing research on the hobby that I love for about thirty five years, and I thought that most of the major surprises were over. One day, Gary Souza decided to go with me to the California State Library to help with the research, and this day held quite a surprise. It was late in the day when Gary suddenly said, "What! Look at this!" 

When I slid over to see what was up, I saw that he was in the business part of the San Francisco Directory, and there under the category "Telegraph Supplies", was a listing for California Electrical Works, and the next listing below was Electrical Construction & Maintenance Company. I asked Gary what year he was in and he said 1887.

What? Surely this must be a mistake! So we looked in other categories and found E. C. & M. Company listed fifteen times. Four of these categories were the following: "Electrical Apparatus Manufacturers", "Insulators", "Telegraph Supplies", and "Telephones --- Acoustic and Electric." 

How can this be possible if E. C. & M. Company went out of business in 1877? Upon further investigation we found them listed in Langley's San Francisco Directory (embracing an accurate index of residents and a business directory) first in 1886 and each year thereafter through 1894.

Now, with this in mind, this gives us a whole different perspective as to when Electrical Construction and Maintenance Company was really in business. In the Mining and Scientific Press, dated June 1, 1878, I found an article that talks about spending the morning in the workshop of one Electrical Construction & Maintenance Company, this being one year after they were believed to be out of business.

Our Electrical Industry - Its Application to Mining. 
What a proud pleasure it would be to the pioneers of electrical science could they but see the applications almost innumerable of their brilliant discoveries. Such men as Franklin, Arago and Faraday spent years of their lives in the study of the then almost unknown force, electricity. Not a thought had they but the pursuit of truth for its own sake, and yet see the results practical, in the narrowest sense of the word, that have come from their labors. Let anyone spend, as we did the other day, a morning in the workshop of the Electrical Construction and Maintenance Company, and they say whether or not the study of pure science is of any practical good to humanity.

. . . There is not an application to which electricity can be put but what this enterprising body of men are ready to carry into execution.

. . . Besides they take contracts for the construction and equipment of all kinds of telegraphic and telephone lines.

It is also known by the California Electrical Works catalogs of years 1878 (shown below) & 1880 that they offered an insulator in there that looks just like an E. C. & M. Co. style.

Further, in 1880 the Nevada Central, and the Aurora to Candelaria lines were constructed using E. C. & M. insulators. 

Many people have speculated that either San Francisco Glass Works or Pacific Glass Works were the ones that produced the E. C. & M. Co. variants, and further research may prove this to be true.

In another article, from the Mining and Scientific Press, dated Sept. 5, 1860, I was to find San Francisco Glass Works showing off the items that they had recently produced, among these were telegraph insulators.

By 1867, San Francisco Glass Works was producing many items out of clear glass, including having a government contract to supply lighthouse chimneys (Sacramento Union, September 12, 1867).

San Francisco Glass Works, Newman & Brennan, proprietors.
This company has been doing their principal business in druggist's prescriptive vials, of which they have all sizes up to l6-ounce; all kinds of patent medicine bottles, bottles for extracts, retorts for chemists, sampling bottles, lamp chimneys, etc. --- of white glass, and as fine as any imported. Lately, however, they have turned their attention to the manufacture of colored glass ware, and not turn out wine and brandy bottles, soda bottles, patent medicine bottles, retorts, carboys, in fact every article made of common glass. They have the Government contract for lighthouse chimneys. One of the most interesting curiosities in the Fair [State Fair] is a bottle exhibited by them with twelve compartments, each of which is filled with a colored liquid, the whole giving a peculiar effect.

And in the Sacramento Union, September 19, 1867:

We, the Committee appoint as judges to make award on articles designated under Class 12, Section 44, in the Third Department of the State Fair, hereby respectfully present this our report: 

We have made a careful and thorough examination of the large and varied assortment of glassware (both flint and colored) made and exhibited by Newman & Brannan of the San Francisco Glass Works of that city. In our opinion, for quality of glass and workmanship, it will do credit to any city in the Union. We find it to contain specimens of the best ground glass, flint glass, bottle glass, bottles of green glass, vials of green glass retorts and receivers, tabulated and plain, carboys, and best display of glassware of any kind on exhibition. In view of the great risk and expense attending its successful introduction and manufacture, its large commercial value to the State and the Pacific coast, we recommend the State Agricultural Society, in lieu of the published premiums, to award either the gold medal belonging to the Third Department, or a special gold medal for exhibits of glassware of Newman & Brannan.

In the year 1884, an article, (dated Aug. 25, from the San Francisco Bulletin) stated that the recently merged San Francisco & Pacific Glass Works were showing newspaper people their new manufacturing plant located on King Street. 

In the mixing room was sand from as far away as Belgium, and in the mold room were eight hundred different private molds. This company was capable of producing almost any kind of glass product. 

Recent years have brought much controversy over the E. C. & M. Co. type insulators, mainly why the new colors, mold variants, and the embossing suddenly showing up on the skirt, instead of the dome, as in the more traditional insulators.

Because, I didn't understand these things either, I decided to dig even deeper into the research to see if there were any answers. Now, that I know that E. C. & M. Company was in business for a much longer time span, and also at a much later date than originally thought, this may place the recently found insulators in a more recent time of manufacture.

I was able to find this information in the California State Library, and I'm sure that I will find more in the future. Perhaps your library may hold some surprises too.

The author, Lou Dieke, is currently assisting a major private museum with a communication display to be shown in many different places in 2001. His primary interest has been in research related to the history of western telegraph.