Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 142, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 June 1911 — HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES

City of Winnipeg Owns Its Utilities

WINNIPEG, Man.—Before the close of the present year this city will be looked upon as the greatest exponent of public ownership on the American continent Its investment in public utilities is now more than $30,000,000. It is nearly a quarter of a century since the city council laid the foundation of municipal ownership by buying out the Winnipeg Water Works company and establishing a municipal plant So successful did the venture prove that when the city decided to lay asphalt pavements some years later It was decided to Install a municipal asphalt plant and the many miles of pavement in this city have been laid by it Trouble with the Winnipeg Electric company, which controls the street railway franchise, gas, electric light and power franchise, resulted tn the city voting $3,000,000 for a municipal power plant. Dut on the Winnipeg river, 65 miles from the city, a plant

is now nearing completion. The near completion of this plant and the prospects that the city would build its own street railway system, led the Winnipeg Electric company to sell out to the city. The purchase price la $18,000,000. Winnipeg’s telephone system is also conducted under public ownership, for it is a portion of the system extending all over the province and owned by the Manitoba government In this city there are over 17,000 telephones, the rates being $24 a year for residences and S4B for office phones. Winnipeg owns its stone quarries in the vicinity of the city, and there, under a staff of civic employes, mines the products for paving the macadam streets and the crushed stone for many purposes. A force of city employes also collects the garbage and refuse and takes It to the civic incinerators for destruction, and when a Winnipeger dies he can be buried, if he so wills, in the municipal cemetery, for the city owns a large plot of land on the western outskirts of the city, in which its dead have been buried for many years. Thirty years ago Winnipeg was a fur post Now it is one of the most rapidly growing cities on the contW nent and is the largest wheat market in the world.