1907 - Storage Battery Installation

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Roanoke Times - March 19, 1907

INSTALLATION WORK

Electrical Engineer Putting in Storage Battery

    Colonel Samuel R. Crowder, chief electrical engineer for the 
Western Union Telegraph Company, is in Roanoke superintending the 
installing here of a large storage battery plant that will furnish 
current for the half hundred telegraph wires that take the invisible 
juice at this point.
    Colonel Crowder announced some months ago that it was the 
intention of the Western Union to put in a modern battery plant here 
and it was expected by him and the general officers of his company 
that the plant would be in operation by the first of this month but 
unforeseen troubles in widely separate sections of the country arose 
that demanded the presence of the chief engineer and his corps of 
assistants and the work here was retarded. It is now believed however 
that the Roanoke plant will be completed within the next week or ten 
days and that by Easter the batterymen will receive orders to send 
the old-style bluestone, zinc and copper cells now in use here to the 
"23" heap.
    The storage plant is being placed in the general office building 
of the Norfolk & Western Railway Company and will come under the 
supervision of Col. W. C. Walstrum, superintendent of telegraph for 
that company. The plant will furnish current for the Western Union 
wires, the supply being transmitted from the Norfolk & Western 
building to the main office of the Western Union Company on Jefferson 
street by a number of storage leads. It will be an easy matter to 
distribute the current in any quantity desired and the plant will 
insure a steady flow at all times. There will be no fluctuation and 
no broken jars to cause an interruption to the handling of messages 
as is the case where the old style jars are used.
    Colonel Crowder expects to give Roanoke a plant that will meet 
the demands here for many years to come and it is being built of the 
very best material procurable, everything coming under the A 1 class.
    At present there are several hundred cells of battery in the 
battery room at the Western Union office and a goodly number occupy 
space in the Norfolk & Western building. All of these will be torn 
down and shipped to other points.
    Storage battery plants are being installed by Western Union 
people in their principal offices over the country where there is a 
heavy and continuous demand for strong and even current on the trunk 
wires. The telegraph business has grown wonderfully in Roanoke within 
the past few years. At the Western Union office a number of wires are 
worked in duplex, while the Norfolk & Western operate come of their 
circuits in quadruplex.
    Manager Terrell, of the Western Union, and Manager Jett, of the 
railroad's general telegraph office, will welcome the improvement and 
in the future they will not experience nearly so much trouble with 
current as has been the case in the past.
    Colonel Crowder is a native Virginian and his rise has been 
meteoric. Twenty years ago he was a telegrapher in the Richmond 
office, where he was classed as gilt-edge. At that time he also 
gained considerable notoriety as a bicyclist, being hailed as the 
champion wheelman of the day. Later he invented the dummy baseball 
game which was for a long time a craze over the country and is yet 
popular in the ball-crazy towns. The dummy game is played by figures 
on a board and the audience watches the movements of their home team 
and the opponents while seated in a theatre or hall.
    Colonel Crowder is widely known in secret order circles having 
for a number of years held high offices in the I.O.O.F. and other orders.
    A decade ago Colonel Crowder took up the study of electricity and 
applied his time to that field to such an extent that his knowledge 
was soon in demand as an electrician, After being transferred from 
the operating department to the engineering department Colonel 
Crowder quickly climbed the rungs on the big ladder and two years ago 
reached the platform at the top.
_______________
Ron Davis