Water and Power Associates Informing the Public about Critical Water and Energy Issues facing Los Angeles and California

On March 30, 1916, workers from the Los Angeles Bureau of Power and Light raised a single wooden pole at the corner of Pasadena Avenue, today's North Figueroa Street, and Piedmont Avenue in Highland Park. The act looked modest from the outside. A crew, a pole, and a watching crowd. But that pole became the first visible step in what would grow into the largest municipally owned electric utility in the United States.

For years, Los Angeles depended on private companies for electricity. The Bureau of Power and Light was created to change that, drawing on the hydroelectric promise of the newly completed Los Angeles Aqueduct. Highland Park became the starting point because the Bureau's early operations were located nearby.

More than a century later, the pole still stands at that corner. This page traces the history of that location from the day the first pole went up, through the growth of the system it helped launch, to the plaque that marks it today.

Location
Piedmont Avenue and North Figueroa Street (formerly Pasadena Avenue), Highland Park, Los Angeles

Date Installed
March 30, 1916

Installed By
Los Angeles Bureau of Power and Light

Historic Designation
Commemorative plaque dedicated February 5, 1952

Status
Original pole remains in place (modified)

The Day It Began (1916)

This photograph captures the ceremony on March 30, 1916, when the Bureau of Power and Light raised the first pole of Los Angeles' municipal electric distribution system at the corner of Pasadena Avenue and Piedmont Avenue in Highland Park. Electricity was still new enough that a pole installation drew a public crowd. The Bureau chose this neighborhood deliberately because its early operations were based nearby and Highland Park and Garvanza were selected as the first communities to receive municipal service.

At the time, the Bureau did not yet generate its own electricity. Power was purchased from Pasadena and delivered over the new lines while local generating facilities were being completed in San Francisquito Canyon. Service officially began later that year. The system that started here expanded rapidly and within a generation became the foundation of electric service across Los Angeles.

This photograph shows the Arroyo Seco Branch Library shortly after its opening in 1914. Designed by local Garvanza architect Frederick M. Ashley in the Classical Revival style, the building was funded in part through a Carnegie Institute grant, with neighborhood residents helping secure the site for the new branch.

Visible along Piedmont Avenue to the right is the line that included Los Angeles' first municipal power pole. The image brings together two public investments arriving at nearly the same moment. One brought books and learning. The other brought electricity. Both became part of everyday life in Highland Park and helped shape the neighborhood for decades.

From Purchased Power to Local Generation

By the mid 1930s, the stretch of Piedmont Avenue that once drew a curious crowd had become everyday working infrastructure. The crews seen here represent the continued expansion and maintenance of a system that bore little resemblance in scale to the single pole installation of 1916.

That transformation accelerated in 1917 when San Francisquito Power Plant No. 1 began operation using water delivered by the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Designed under the direction of Bureau chief electrical engineer Ezra F. Scattergood, the plant gave Los Angeles its first source of locally generated power. The city that purchased electricity from Pasadena in 1916 soon produced enough power to send electricity back.

Expansion in the 1920s

Expansion of the municipal distribution system did not happen without resistance. Private utility companies had already established extensive networks across the region, and extending public service brought years of negotiation, competition, and legal dispute.

A major turning point came when Los Angeles acquired Southern California Edison's distribution system within City limits. That move dramatically expanded municipal reach and accelerated the growth of public power. From that point forward, the question was no longer whether municipal power would grow, but how quickly.

A Corner That Became a Landmark

By 1951 the original pole had stood at the corner for thirty five years and had become part of the neighborhood's identity. The photograph shows it still standing near the Arroyo Seco Branch Library while the surrounding streets continued to evolve.

Much of what existed in 1916 had changed. The private utility companies that once competed with the Bureau were gone from the City's distribution network. The Pacific Electric streetcar system that connected this neighborhood to the rest of Los Angeles was entering its final decade. Yet the first pole remained at its original corner. Within a year, the Department of Water and Power would formally recognize the site with a commemorative plaque.

On February 5, 1952, the Department of Water and Power and the Historical Society of Southern California dedicated a plaque at the corner of Piedmont Avenue and North Figueroa Street to commemorate the installation of the first municipal power pole.

The plaque reads in part: "On this corner, March 30, 1916, was erected the first pole of the municipal electric distribution system of the City of Los Angeles."

The choice to commemorate a single wooden pole rather than a power plant or office building reflected something important. Public power became visible in neighborhoods through poles, wires, and service to homes and businesses. This corner was where that work began.

The Library and the Changing Streetscape

This 1946 view captures the corner in its mid century setting. The Arroyo Seco Branch Library anchors the left side while a Pacific Electric streetcar rounds the bend toward North Figueroa Street. The first power pole stood just beyond the edge of the scene.

The image shows how the corner had become a neighborhood center. Residents gathered here for books, transportation, and daily life. What had once been a construction site for a new utility had become an ordinary city corner, even as its historical importance quietly remained.

This photograph documents a familiar moment in postwar Los Angeles as streetcar tracks were removed and transportation shifted toward buses and automobiles.

The contrast is striking. While the tracks disappeared and the surrounding streets changed, the first municipal power pole remained where it had stood since 1916. The library would soon be replaced, but the corner itself still preserved the memory of where municipal power began.

The Site Today

This photograph shows the corner on the one hundredth anniversary of the first pole's installation. The pole has been shortened and the lines moved elsewhere, but the original location remains unchanged.

A visitor standing here today can still read the plaque and stand on the same ground where Bureau crews worked in 1916. From this modest beginning grew a system that today provides electric service to roughly 1.6 million customers across Los Angeles.

This close view of the commemorative plaque shows the marker still in good condition decades after its installation. Its text remains unchanged and continues to connect visitors directly to the events of March 30, 1916.

Together, the plaque and surviving pole create one of the city's most specific historical markers. They preserve not only a location, but also a moment. The photograph, taken by a member of the Los Angeles Explorers Guild more than a century after the original installation, continues a long tradition of visitors stopping at this corner to reflect on how municipal power in Los Angeles began.

Then and Now

This comparison pairs a 1946 photograph with a 2021 street view from nearly the same location. The streetcar is gone, the library has been rebuilt, and generations of change have passed across the intersection.

Yet the shape of the corner remains recognizable. The relationship between the street, the library site, and the location of the first pole still ties the two images together. Few places in Los Angeles allow visitors to stand in nearly the exact spot where such a defining moment in the city's infrastructure history unfolded.

Conclusion

What began with one pole and a watching crowd on a Highland Park street corner in 1916 became the beginning of municipal power in Los Angeles. The Bureau started with purchased electricity and wooden poles and grew into an institution that helped shape the city's growth throughout the twentieth century. In 1937, the Bureau of Power and Light joined with the City's water system to form the Department of Water and Power, linking water and electric service under one organization that continues to serve Los Angeles today.

The corner of Piedmont Avenue and North Figueroa Street has changed many times over. The library was rebuilt, the streetcar tracks disappeared, and generations came and went. But the pole and the plaque remain.

They mark the day Angelenos gathered to watch a single pole go up, unaware they were witnessing the beginning of a system that would help power Los Angeles for generations.