Page Four
BADIN bulletin
Ml
i-i
: V ;v
SCOUTS, TROOP I, BEARING THE BIG FLAG
man in Whitney to run a planing mill^
.The planing mill ran during the day
time, and the lights were needed at
night, so both got along pretty well.
During the winter of 1916, the popula
tion of Badin increased very rapidly,
and more lights were needed, the ma
chine shop needed power, and Mr. Broad-
well had gotten the carbon plant recon
structed to a point where he needed some
power, so Farmer Scott decided that
something had to be done. The first
thing was to get the brush and trees
out of the canal, and some of the weeds
and mud out of the forebay. • A load
of dynamite was taken up and placed
at strategic points along the canal, and
the way the trees and mud flew was
enough to awe the natives. One of the
Farmer’s able assistants sneaked away
and hid under some bushes at quite a
distance from the canal, and was nearly
caught under a flying tree. “Ha!”'said
the Farmer, “you will lay down on me,
will you?” The man never stopped run
ning to answer questions, and may be
running yet.*7 Soon the canal was wid
ened from a'small ditch to a real canal,
but the anticipated amount of water
did not get to the wheel, as there were
two or three rather bad breaks in the
canal banks. These were patched, and
the water then obtained gave the re
quired amount of power as long as the
river was high.
■ A little later the carbon plant started
to bake carbons, and then there were a
couple of small exhaust fans which Mr.
Broadwell said had to be run all the
time. Mr. Hagadorn, in the machine
shop, had an air compressor which need
ed to be run part of the time, and the
people in town needed more lights, and
the water went down in the river. The
result was that when the air compressor
started up, the fans in the carbon plant
nearly stopped, and the lights in town
were just red. Mr. Broadwell kicked,
the people in town kicked, and Farmer
Scott got desperate. He hied away to
Whitney again for another look. “Ha!”
said he, “we must stop the river, and
make it flow through this canal.” He
began cutting trees and hauling slabs
and rough lumber from the planing mill
to the river, and started to build a dam
across the river; but the dam was not
very tight, and did not help very much
for a time. One day the Farmer spied
a haystack. “The very thing!” said he,
and to the river the stack was moved
with great haste. The hay and a few
sandbags were put in the largest holcR.
and good results were obtained. There
was water enough to generate power foi"
lights, for the fans, and the air com
pressor, all at the same time.
The Farmer engaged Claude Rhine-
hardt and John Coggins as operators, o'’
twelve-hour shifts. There was already
one residence (shack) constructed, which
Mr. Rhinehardt moved his family intOi
and the Farmer built another for Cog
gins. This house had two rooms, each
about ten by twelve feet, and later Cog
gins added a small porch during
spai*e time, [^hings went along pretty
well for a time, until one day the.lignu^i
vitae thrust-block under the water wheel
burned out. Everything stopped-—the
two fans, the air compressor, and the
lights. The Farmer started a line of
conveyances between Badin and Whit
ney, hauling ropes, chain hoists, pump®’
boilers, coal, and in a few hours the wheel
was dismantled, the old block removed,
and a new one put in. During this
breakdown, the Farmer managed to n®'
gotiate with a man for the loan of
old International harvester truck, which
he thought would save lots of time. Un
fortunately, during the first trip, when
about opposite the steepest part of the
bank along the old Whitney canal, some
thing happened to the steering gear, and
the truck left the road for a rapid trip
down the thirty-five foot bank to the
bottom of the canal.
There were three men in the truck
with the Farmer, and fortunately
reached the bottom safely. The Farmed’
said: “Aw, that’s nothing.”
1 After the Farmer had gotten the
adjustment to Mr. Tallassee’s electrical
system finished, he stai’ted exploring'
and somewhere under a tree near Palm®^
Mountain he found ten large transfovnfi'
ers, weighing about ten or twelve ton-‘^
THESE WERE GOOD MEN IN WAR TIMES—THEY HAVE SHOWN THEMSELVES
BE PUBLIC SPIRITED CITIZENS IN TIME OF PEACE