Light across the Prairies by Bill Beck (1989, Book)

Northwestern Public Service Company, today known as Northwestern Energy, has a long, colorful history. In my home state of Nebraska it operated electrical facilities until the 1940s when it sold its properties to the Consumer's Public Power District. Today it operates natural gas facilities in Grand Island, North Platte, and Kearney.

With ties to Samuel Insull's Midwest Utilities Company during the 1920s NWPSCo had connections with the Central Power Company who operated hydroelectric and steam power plants in the Grand Island and Kearney areas. Also, during the mid-1920s NWPSCo made a connection with the Elkhorn Valley Electric Company at Creston, Nebraska. EVECo had a small diesel power plant and ice plant at Scribner, while Northwestern maintained a small steam plant at Columbus.

Bill Beck goes into some detail about Nebraska's decision to go with public power, and how that ultimately impacted Northwestern's business. He also talks about South Dakota's efforts to adopt public power in relation to the construction of the federal dams on the Missouri River during the 1940s and 1950s.

What is most interesting, however, is reading about the evolution of this particular utility. Like many midwestern utilities NWPSCo developed from a few small, isolated steam and internal combustion power plants to a large interconnected system with massive coal-fired stations, modern diesel and gas turbine peaking stations, and more recently the hydroelectric plants of the famous Montana Power Company.

Bill Beck is a good writer and is able to keep the reader's attention. I also have a copy of his book, The Service People, a history of the Iowa Public Service Company, today part of Warren Buffet's Mid-American Energy.

Anybody who is interested in the public utilities business would find this book fascinating.