Overview
At the center of San Antonio's growth from a small pioneering town to a major western metropolis sits CPS Energy, the largest municipally owned energy utility in the United States and an innovator in harnessing, conserving, and capitalizing on natural energy resources. The story of modern energy in San Antonio begins in 1860, when the San Antonio Gas Company started manufacturing gas for streetlights in a small plant on San Pedro Creek, using tree resin that arrived by oxcart. The company grew from a dark, dusty frontier town with more saloons than grocery stores to a bustling crossroads to the West and, ultimately, a twentieth-first-century American city. Innovative city leaders purchased the utility from a New Yorkbased holding company in 1942, and CPS Energy as we know it today was born. In Powering the City, Catherine Nixon Cooke discusses the rise and fall of big holding companies, the impact of the Great Depression and World War II--when 25 percent of the company's workforce enlisted in the armed forces--on the city's energy supply, and the emergence of nuclear energy and a nationally acclaimed model for harnessing solar and wind energy. Known and relatively unknown events are recounted, including Samuel Insull's move to Europe after his empire crashed in 1929; President Franklin Roosevelt's Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, which made it possible for the city to purchase the San Antonio Public Service Company; the city's competition with the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority, whose champion was Congressman Lyndon Johnson, in which the city emerged victorious in a deal that today returns billions in financial benefit; legal wranglings such as one that led to the establishment of Valero Energy Corporation; and energy's role in the Southwest Research Institute and the South Texas Medical Center, HemisFair 1968, Sea World, Fiesta Texas, and Morgan's Wonderland. Images from CPS's archive of historic photographs, some dating as far back as the early 1900s; back issues of its in-house magazine; and the Institute of Texas Cultures provide rich material to illustrate the story. As CPS Energy celebrates seventy-five years of city ownership, the region's industrial, scientific, and technological innovation are due in part to the company's extraordinary impact on San Antonio.
Full Product Details
Author: Catherine Nixon Cooke ,
Bill Greehey ,
Char Miller
Publisher: Trinity University Press,U.S.
Imprint: Trinity University Press,U.S.
Dimensions:
Width: 21.50cm
, Height: 1.80cm
, Length: 25.40cm
Weight: 0.612kg
ISBN: 9781595348432
ISBN 10: 1595348433
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 11 January 2018
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Temporarily unavailable
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Reviews
“Powering a City is indispensible reading for anyone deeply interested in the life of San Antonio — and its future.”— San Antonio Express-News
Powering a City is indispensible reading for anyone deeply interested in the life of San Antonio - and its future. - San Antonio Express-News
Author Information
Catherine Nixon Cooke is the author of Juan O'Gorman: A Confluence of Civilizations and Powering a City: How Energy and Big Dreams Transformed San Antonio, both published by Trinity University Press; The Thistle and the Rose: Romance, Railroads, and Big Oil in Revolutionary Mexico; and Tom Slick, Mystery Hunter, which is in development as a major motion picture. She is a contributor to two anthologies, They Lived to Tell the Tale: True Stories of Modern Adventure from the Legendary Explorers Club and Adventurous Dreams, Adventurous Lives. She and her husband divide their time between San Antonio, the Texas hill country, and more remote parts of the world where untold stories beckon.
