Electric lighting became practical after Thomas Edison patented his light bulb in 1880. In Dover, a privately owned company provided power to downtown electric streetlamps, but community leaders believed the charges were excessive. In 1898, voters passed a bond levy for $15,000 to build a municipal power plant. The Tuscarawas County Electric Light & Power Company challenged Dover's efforts in court, and after years of litigation, a second bond issue was passed in 1907 for $35,000. After more legal challenges and an anti-light plant publicity campaign, Dover built its facility on the southern bank of the Tuscarawas River near Bank Lane and East Broadway Streets, and the plant began service in 1910. Northern Ohio Traction & Light, based in Cleveland, owned and operated an interurban line that ran to points south through Dover to Uhrichsville. It supplied its Dover section through a substation and also sold power to the community for street lights. Buildings in Dover associated with the interurban included a car barn at what is now 10th and Wooster, a dynamo and car maintenance building, and a freight terminal building at South Wooster Avenue and West Broadway. The interurban operated until 1929, when it and many other lines were replaced by the convenience of the automobile in the 1920s and 1930s.