The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

931 olâ€" M’n May 21 1931 All over northern Ilinois, local electric [ stations that served only one town were abandoned. A few modern stations capable of serving twenty .. . thirty . . . forty towns replaced them. ‘This extension of the "central station" idea demonstrated by the Lake County Experiment brought service to alâ€" most 100 new communities within a few years. o MAKING "SERVICE" MEAN SOMETHING THH "LAKE COUNTY EXPERIMENT" demonâ€" strated a new and better method of bringâ€" ing electric service to scattered suburban and rural communities in northern Illinois.. One centrallyâ€"located electric station was substiâ€" tuted for a dozen small local plantsâ€"and wooden pole lines carried service long disâ€" tances to twentyâ€"two customerâ€"communities. But the story of the Lake County Experiment has already been told ... ~~‘What had been done once could be done again. What had worked in Lake County could be made to work over 6,000 square miles of territory surrounding Chicago. And that was the job of the Public Service Comâ€" pany twenty years ago. pamicy The wooden wireâ€"strung poles that paralâ€" leled every main highway became symbols of a new era of electric serviceâ€"a service that was available twentyâ€"four hours a day instead of a meager six. It meant much to the resiâ€" dents of northern Illinois. f Storms, however, still played havoc with these pole lines. Terrific winds uprooted poles, tore down wires. Service was interâ€" rupted. Troubleâ€"shooting crews were disâ€" patched at once to repair the damage. They This is the third of a series of stories chronicling the development of the Public Service Company of Northern Wilinois and the service it is bringing to the area into which Chicago is growing. Copres of previous chapters will be mailed you if you will write to the Company, 72 West Adams Street, Chicago PuBLC SERVICE COMPANY T M E6E S E6E RVIC EO F N 0 R OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS Chapter 1 worked twentyâ€"four hour shifts, if necessary. But service bed been interrupted. So the next job was to forestall as many of these interruptions as possible. The network of pole lines was strengthened. Oldlines were replaced with new lines of sturdier deâ€" sign. Communities had service brought to them over more than one route. In case of an accident on the main line, service could be switched immediately to an indirect or **detour" line. ~The large investment in this reconstruction program resulted in a definite advance toward the high quality of service which is taken for granted today. In 1923, an even greater step forward was taken. Interconnection of electric systems was introduced into northern Illinois. Just as, poles typified an era of improved twentyâ€"four hour service, the steel tower lines that now began to appear typified an era of superâ€"service. These steel towers, anchored in concrete and transmitting vast quantities of energy,strengthâ€" ened the pathways of power between imporâ€" tant generating stations. Today steel tower lines are a familiar sight. They interconnect all the Company‘s large electric stations, making the power produced at any one of them available to all the others. They interconnect, also, the power resources of neighbor utility compaâ€" nies, tying in 317 northern Illinois cities and towns with the greatest pool of power in the world. Here are vast power highways ready to serve the future, forestalling the possibility of any "electrical famine" in the years to come. 4 est, 18 â€" C th at st ic : of lay t F »1d nue