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rumored to be in poor health, to quit the business. Two months later, he sold the dam and power
<br /> plant to his son-in-law, Dr. F. E. Griswold of Minneapolis. Griswold had two partners: C. A.
<br /> Willd, a lumberman from Hoffman, Minnesota, and John Colbrath, a Minneapolis real estate
<br /> investor. The new owners pledged that they would follow the"progressive lines" mapped out for
<br /> the company by Waterman.33
<br /> On January 13, 1921, F. D. Waterman died. Many stores and businesses closed during his funeral
<br /> two days later to allow all to pay tribute to the man who had brought power to Elk River. In
<br /> addition, according to a contemporary newspaper account, "as the words of eulogy were being
<br /> spoken over [Waterman's] body at the church, the power wheel at the power plant was shut
<br /> down and for fifteen minutes the wires and motors which he had first furnished with electric
<br /> energy were cold and dead."34
<br /> Litigation of Large-Scale Ownership
<br /> Within a year of Waterman's death, the new operators expanded operations by installing a new
<br /> Leffel turbine with a 188 KVA generator. They also added flashboards to the dam to increase the
<br /> available head by about three feet. The rising reservoir flooded land upstream, and five irate
<br /> homeowners brought suit claiming damage to their property. Elk River Power argued that the
<br /> fifteen-foot head was necessary to maintain sufficient voltage on the system. In 1923, an acting
<br /> district court judge not only awarded each plaintiff$425 for loss of property value but also
<br /> ordered the company to remove the flashboards as soon as an arrangement could be made to
<br /> acquire extra power. The Minnesota Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from the company,
<br /> which maintained that the money adequately compensated property owners for loss of land
<br /> caused by the flashboards. Ultimately, the flashboards were allowed to remain.35
<br /> The resolution of the case might have been hastened by the desire of Dr. Griswold and the other
<br /> investors to sell the business to the Chicago-based William A. Baehr Organization, which had
<br /> begun to manage the plant late in 1923 with an option to purchase. The deal was finalized in
<br /> January 1924.
<br /> Born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in 1873, William Baehr had worked for power companies in
<br /> Milwaukee, Denver, and Saint Louis. He founded a consulting engineering practice in 1909,
<br /> specializing in designing, building, and managing gas and electric plants. By the 1920s, Baehr
<br /> was president of North American Light and Power Company and North Continent Utilities
<br /> Corporation, both large utility holding companies. When he acquired the Elk River plant, his
<br /> operations were reportedly valued at about$165 million, ranking as one of the largest power
<br /> conglomerates in the country.36
<br /> 33"Flood Gate Goes Out,"Sherburne County Star News,August 12, 1920; Seelhammer and Mosher, Growth of
<br /> Sherburne County,335;"Waterman Sells Power Interest,"Sherburne County Star News,October 28, 1924.
<br /> 34"Masonic Rites for Waterman."
<br /> 35"Welsch et al.v.Elk River Power and Light Co.,"649-51;"Supreme Court Grants New Trial in Power Cases
<br /> Here,"Sherburne County Star News,January 10, 1924.
<br /> 36 John William Leonard,ed., Who's Who in Engineering(New York:Who's Who Publications, 1925), 94;"Deal
<br /> Completed for Purchase of Elk River Power Property,"Sherburne County Star News,January 17, 1924; "Waterman
<br /> Builds First Power-Light Plant Here in'15."A company history written by former Superintendent William
<br /> Patenaude in 1972 asserts that the company changed hands twice in 1923 before being acquired by Baehr.One
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