Municipal Power Plant

After efforts by Yoakum officials to buy existing electric power facilities failed, the city voted in 1930 at a commission meeting attended by about 300 residents to build a municipal power plant. Designed by Montgomery and Ward engineers of Wichita Falls and built by F.O. Crawford of Yoakum in 1932 on land bought from the Spencer-Sauer Lumber Company, the building housed Yoakum's only electric power plant until 1938 and then served as an auxiliary electric plant until the early 1960s. From 1964 to 1989 it was used as a municipal machine shop. In 1988 city officials offered the building to Friends of the Library, a local group founded in 1978 to promote the city library, and the organization used state funds and donations from local citizens to convert it into a public library. The project won recognition as a fine example of restoration and adaptive use of a historic building, and the structure is also an excellent example of an industrial facility, with a three-bay primary facade, large metal sash windows, a five-part parapet with incised name block, and a gable roof with protruding clerestory windows.

Yoakum, Texas · United States