Municipal Power Plant

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight with a little extra relish. This is the story of a building in Yoakum, DeWitt County, that just flat refused to be useless. Now, Yoakum's city officials had tried the polite route first.

They went to the folks who already ran the electric power facilities and tried to buy them out. That didn't work. So in 1930, they called a commission meeting, and about three hundred local residents showed up to decide what to do next.

Three hundred people. For a commission meeting. That right there tells you something about how badly this town wanted its own power.

The vote went through, and Yoakum decided to build its own municipal power plant from the ground up. The firm of Montgomery and Ward, engineers out of Wichita Falls, drew up the design. A man named F.

O. Crawford, right there from Yoakum, did the building. He put it up in 1932 on land the city had purchased from the Spencer-Sauer Lumber Company.

And that building, with its three-bay facade and those big metal sash windows and a five-part parapet with an incised name block up top, clerestory windows poking out of the gable roof, it wasn't just functional. It had a presence. From 1932 to 1938 it was Yoakum's sole source of electric power.

Then it kept right on working as an auxiliary electric plant into the early 1960s. After that, from 1964 to 1989, the city used it as a municipal machine shop. A lesser building might've given up somewhere in there.

But in 1988, city officials turned to a group called the Friends of the Library, a local organization that had been going since 1978 with one purpose: to promote the city library. Officials offered them the building, and those Friends got to work. State funds came in.

Local citizens gave generously. And that old power plant, that industrial workhorse of poured concrete and metal sash and parapet stone, became a public library. The project earned recognition as a fine example of restoration and adaptive use of a historic building.

A building that once kept the lights on for a whole town ended up being the place where people go to read by them.

What the marker says

After attempts by Yoakum officials to purchase existing electric power facilities failed, the city voted in 1930, at a commission meeting attended by about 300 local residents, to build its own municipal power plant. This building was designed by the firm of Montgomery and Ward engineers of Wichita Falls and built by F. O. Crawford of Yoakum in 1932 on land purchased from the Spencer-Sauer Lumber Company. The building housed Yoakum's sole electric power plant until 1938 and continued in use as an auxiliary electric plant until the early 1960s. From 1964 to 1989 the building served as a municipal machine shop. In 1988 city officials offered the "Friends of the Library," a local organization organized in 1978 to promote the city library, an opportunity to utilize the building. The organization made use of state funds and generous donations by local citizens to convert the building into a public library. The project has earned recognition as a fine example of restoration and adaptive use of a historic building. The building is an excellent example of an industrial facility. It features a 3-bay primary facade, large metal sash windows, a 5-part parapet with incised name block, and gable roof with protruding clerestory windows. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1993