Kramer was instrumental in bringing the Loup River Public Power District project to fruition. He also helped organize the American Public Power Association, which is celebrating
its 85th anniversary this year.
Thirty-six Columbus businessmen met at the Thurston hotel at noon on Sept. 15, 1932.
They were called there by Phil Hockenberger who wanted to revive a decades-old plan to create a Loup River power canal.
He wanted to take advantage of funds from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) that were dedicated for public projects throughout the country.
The proposal generated interest and excitement. A canal would bring electricity to the area. It would also create jobs at a time when employment opportunities were scarce.
They formed a seven-person committee to investigate the possibility forming a power district and obtaining funding.
Hockenberger’s good friend, Harold Kramer, was an ardent supporter of the plan. The committee asked him to travel to Lincoln to apply for water rights at the Department of Public Works.
That meeting ignited a flame in Kramer that led to a decades-long career at Loup Power District and a lifelong drive to bring public power to the state and nation.
‘WHITE COAL’
Harold Kramer was born in Columbus in 1892. He graduated high school in 1909 and attended the University of Chicago until 1912.
He worked with his father at the Kramer Koal Kompany in Columbus for a few years before joining the Army in World War I.
Then he homesteaded in Wyoming for two years before returning home to take over the family business, selling it in 1932.
He was already heavily involved in public service. He was a member of the American Legion and served on Chamber of Commerce committees.
He was passionate about road improvement and advocated for the Meridian Viaduct over the Union Pacific tracks in 1931.
But there was something else he needed to add to his list — the Loup Project.
A couple of weeks after that initial meeting, he was part of a delegation that met with senator George Norris to promote the project under provisions of the RFC.
The delegation reported that Norris was in favor of the idea.
“I feel that there exists in Nebraska a great amount of ‘white coal’ which should be harnessed, and I am in hopes that engineers will find your project favorable,” Norris said, according to their report.
ENGINEERING SURVEYS
The Loup River Water Development Committee organized a public meeting on Oct. 11, 1932. Experts reported that soil conditions, geological structure, and constant water supply were favorable for the project.
Kramer told those in attendance that he didn’t want to “throw cold water” on the idea but cautioned them against getting their hopes too high.
“It is a wonderful project,” he said. “But it must be determined yet whether it can produce electricity cheaper than the coal, natural gas, or diesel engine plants and what the market will be for the electricity.”
Later that month, Kramer traveled to Kansas City with August Wagner and Hockenberger to meet with engineering firm Burns & McDonnell.
They submitted a survey and report made in 1911 for a similar project that failed to materialize. After reviewing the report, the firm announced that the project was “meritorious and feasible.”
But there was a downside to that news: it was going to cost nearly $10,000 to employ the firm to complete new engineering surveys.
Local businessmen pledged large and small amounts to the campaign and soon they had enough to commission the survey.
THE ENABLING ACT
Then Kramer began to tackle the next hurdle — passage of Senate File 310, also called the Enabling Act. The bill would allow the creation of public power and irrigation districts and allow them to borrow federal funds to finance projects.
On April 15, 1933, the Columbus Telegram reported that Kramer returned to Columbus from Lincoln where he had “represented the local committee for the past 40 days in the matter of furnishing information to the legislators relative to the merits of the Columbus Loup River Project.”
A few days later, Governor Charles Bryan signed the bill into law.
‘HAPPY DAYS’
Passage of the Enabling Act was a big win for the Development Committee. But it wasn’t a guarantee that they could form a public power district. The act required the approval of at least 15% of voters in the project’s boundary.
Those signatures were presented to the State Department of Roads and Irrigation in May 1933, and Loup River Public Power District was formally created on June 1.
In early June 1933, the temporary board of directors became permanent. They were nearly ready to submit a federal funds application to the RFC.
The board delegated Secretary Kramer to go to Washington, D.C., to determine all the regulations and requirements before filing a formal application.
While he was there, the Public Works Administration (PWA) was established as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. It aimed to stimulate the economy by funding large-scale construction projects. Many applications, including Loup’s, were transferred to the PWA.
In a letter to the Columbus Telegram, Kramer was cautiously optimistic.
“Regarding the power canal, which is my sole business mission here, while I would not say that we have it in the bag; nevertheless, it is my opinion that our chances are good,” he said.
After two months, Kramer returned home to continue his work. And finally, the PWA announced a $7.3 million loan and grant from the PWA.
The date was Nov. 15, 1933 — Kramer’s 41st birthday.
“Happy days are here” the Columbus Telegram noted. The paper also lauded Kramer’s valiant efforts.
“For more than a year he has labored day and night on its behalf with the persistence, resourcefulness and thoroughness that are so characteristic of him.”
But he still had more work to do.
GENERAL MANAGER
On June 4, 1934, the Board of Directors voted to install Kramer as Secretary and General Manager. He would have general supervision of the business while being subject to the board of directors.
“Mr. Kramer, more than any other one man here, through his indefatigable work in its behalf, has been responsible for the success of the canal project to date, members of the board say,” reported the Columbus Telegram.
Over the following months, Kramer worked to secure the project funding, award engineering bids, and start excavation.
Excavation began on Oct. 15, 1934, at the James Donoghue farm seven miles northwest of Columbus.
Both powerhouses were operational by the end of 1938. Transmission lines from Omaha to Lincoln, Grand Island to Lincoln, and Hastings to Lincoln were all under construction — funded in part by an additional $2.3 million loan and grant.
The District switched from its construction period to operation on September 1, 1938.
The plant’s output was approximately 4,000 kW.
Customers included the North Loup and Middle Loup Power Districts; Howard, Southern Nebraska, Platte, Cuming, and Lancaster rural electrification districts; Western Public Service Company; the Platte Valley District powerhouse at North Platte; and Tri-County’s substation at Hastings.
PUBLIC POWER PROMOTION
During the project construction, Kramer began looking forward to the future of public power.
He made several trips to D.C. and New York to discuss the purchase of private utility companies in Nebraska.
At one meeting in June 1937, Kramer voiced his opinion that the absorption of private companies would become a reality.
“There is a gradual but increasing sentiment that power plants should be transferred from private hands to public ownership,” he said.
In early 1939, Kramer frequented Lincoln to voice opposition to Legislative Bill 135, which would require public power districts to get the vote of the people before buying any existing electric system.
“They might as well come right out in the open and pass a bill forbidding public power districts to buy any private utilities because that is the thinly disguised objective of LB 185 in its present form,” he said.
The bill was killed that May.
— Columbus Telegram, June 10, 1939
A PUBLIC POWER STATE
The door was now open, and Loup was ready to purchase private power companies. But it had debt obligations to the PWA, posing a funding problem.
On Aug. 5, 1939, the same men who organized the Loup project created Consumers Public Power District to
facilitate the purchase of those companies.
Its members included the state’s three hydros: Loup, Platte Valley, and Central Nebraska (Tri-County).
In October 1939, Consumers assumed operation of the Columbus division of the Northwestern Public Service Company through a lease-purchase agreement. It purchased the company in July 1940 with $1.2 million in bonds. It was the first acquisition of a private utility by a public power district through bond issue.
The following year, Kramer helped facilitate the unification of the three hydros to pool generation and revenue. This agreement created the Nebraska Public Power System (later known as Nebraska Public Power District).
By the end of 1943, Consumers Public Power District acquired all generation and distribution facilities across the state except for Nebraska Power Company in Omaha. The cost was more than $40 million paid for by revenue bonds.
In 1944, a group of Omaha citizens formed the Omaha Electric Committee, Inc., a nonprofit corporation to obtain public ownership of Nebraska Power Company.
That December, Loup created an Eastern Division and issued revenue bonds to finance a $15.6 million loan to the committee for its purchase of Nebraska Power.
Two years later, Omaha Public Power District closed its purchase of the Nebraska Power Company from the committee at a price of $42 million, financed by revenue bonds. Included in the purchase price was $13.5 million that was used to repay Loup in full.
Getting public power to Omaha was suggested by Kramer way back in 1938.
“Benefits to the Omaha electric consumers, both large and small, is the incentive which motivates the Loup River Public Power District in its desire to bring public ownership of the electric utility in your city,” he said.
His dream of a fully public powered state was finally realized.
THE NATIONAL STAGE
By 1941, Kramer’s impact on public power was already recognized. An article in the May 14 issue of the Columbus Telegram called him the “guiding light and guardian of the Loup River Public Power District.”
“Kramer’s whole life since 1932 has been wrapped up in the broad program of publicly owned electric power in Nebraska,” the article continued. “As the executive head of the big hydro district, he has conceived and brought to success a myriad of plans for its extension and solidarity. The history books do not yet tell of Harold Kramer’s prominence in the expansion of that program, nor are they likely to ever tell the whole story.”
Kramer wasn’t satisfied with bringing public power to the state. He wanted to bring it to the nation.
In December 1941, The Columbus News announced that Kramer was to head the nation’s power research.
“Harold Kramer, secretary and general manager of the Loup River Public Power District, is the nation’s No. 1 man in public power circles, according to word received in Columbus yesterday,” the paper reported. “Kramer has been in Washington several weeks and it has been announced that he has been made general manager of the American Public Power Association.”
The new organization was made up of public power districts throughout the country with a goal of coordinating public power information.
The APPA was organized in 1940 but lacked the funds to employ an experienced manager, according to Sewell Wingfield of the PWA.
So he persuaded Loup Power District to lend Kramer in an effort to save the organization.
“The excellent work which Harold Kramer, so studiously, relentlessly and unselfishly performed, under the most difficult and trying circumstances, was responsible for saving APPA and laying the groundwork, which has enabled it to grow and take its place as one of the important and influential organizations in America,” Wingfield wrote.
Kramer worked for the APPA for six months. Supervising Engineer Fred Albert acted as General Manager in his absence.
The June 24, 1942, issue of APPA’s newsletter noted Harold’s absence
after Loup’s board of directors requested that he return to Columbus.
“The past two weeks found your editor busy lacing up a big pair of shoes left here by Harold Kramer,” noted the newsletter.
“This Association expresses its sincere thanks to the Loup System and its board for their generosity in making it possible for Harold to render the fine services he did for the past six months.”
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
For the next few years, Kramer continued to serve as Loup’s GM and advocate for public power interests.
In April 1946, he headed to Washington, D.C., to negotiate Loup’s purchase of a 92-acre tract on the east side of Columbus from the federal governnment’s War Assets Administration.
The land was intended for a wartime aluminum extrusion plant that did not materialize.
The goal was to expand the electrical market while also providing economic development for the city.
The plan was approved that year. The first tract was sold to Behlen Manufacturing.
“The Loup River Public Power District directors invested some $25,000 in cooperative, nonprofit enterprise to provide industrial sites with trackage, highway connections, natural gas, electricity and other utilities for anyone who wanted to build a factory,” he wrote in a letter to the editor in 1946.
“The value of it is evident to anyone who has inspected the new Behlen Manufacturing Company plant, employing approximately one hundred people, many of them G. I.’s. Already we have two other very good prospects for manufacturing institutions,” he continued.
The site is believed to be the first of its kind in the United States.
A SHOCKING DEATH
While en route home from that negotiation meeting in Washington, Kramer suffered a heart attack.
He spent a few weeks in a New York hospital before returning to Columbus and spending some time at St. Mary’s hospital. He was back to work in a few months.
Three years later, Kramer headed back to Washington with John Preston, President of the Board of Directors. They asked the Rural Electrification Administration for financing to help the hydros expand their generation and transmission systems.
He then flew to Durham, N.C., to meet with a leading heart specialist.
He died of a heart attack hours before his appointment. He was 56.
Loup’s Board of Directors passed a special resolution the following day and the Nebraska Legislature stood in silent tribute.
And then words of shock and sympathy came to Columbus from around the state and nation.
Then-mayor Lee Nauenburg said Kramer was responsible for the majority of city improvements.
“His foresightedness and planning for future developments and improvements was greater than any other man in the community,” he said.
H.P. Behlen, Chamber of Commerce President, agreed.
“Harold’s guiding hand and capacity of getting things done for his community was ever present, no matter what the task,” he said.
“Practically every worthwhile accomplishment for the betterment of Columbus in the past 20 years has had Harold Kramer in on it in some way or another.”
Claude Wickard, Administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration, was one of many who reacted to the loss.
“The public power people of the country have lost one of their outstanding pioneers.”
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