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There are lots of caches in this area, but this one, probably the last of the Thomas Ahearn caches, is fairly short and easy.
Thomas Ahearn #4
Thomas Ahearn (1855 -1938) was a Canadian inventor and businessman, born in the Lebreton Flats area of Ottawa. He had many accomplishments in several different fields; this cache is in tribute to his contribution to the development of electricity and the formation of Hydro Ottawa.
After bouncing around the telegraphic industry for a number of years, Ahearn met Warren Y. Soper, who was the manager of Dominion Telegraph in Ottawa. In 1881, Ahearn and Soper both resigned their respective positions to form a new electrical contracting company called Ahearn and Soper, Electrical Contractors, based at 56 Sparks St., Ottawa. They formed many innovative companies in the fields of heat, light, power (they became representatives of the Westinghouse Electric Manufacturing company), and the electric street railway.
In 1882, Ahearn and Soper launched the Ottawa Electric Company, which was the predecessor to Hydro Ottawa, the Ottawa Gas Company, and the Ottawa Car Manufacturing Company, which manufactured streetcars.That year they lit up the city’s nightscape with 65 new electric arc streetlamps, thus introducing electric light to Ottawa. The Ottawa Electric Light Company built a small waterwheel at Chaudière Falls on the Ottawa River to supply power for the street lighting, possibly the first hydraulic generator in Canada. By 1891, #2 Generating Station was built on Victoria Island and in 1900, #4 Generating Station was also built there; today, both are assets of Energy Ottawa.
In 1887, for Queen Victoria's Diamond (60th) Jubilee, Ahearn and Soper were contracted to illuminate the entire face of the Parliament Buildings with thousands of electric lights. This practice continues to this date around Christmas. During this same celebration, Thomas Ahearn was instrumental in organizing the first coast-to-coast communication network, which, through the medium of the recently completed telegraph circuits, was able to carry news of the Capital's participation in the celebration to all the major centres in Canada.
Ahearn continued to find ways to bring Ottawa’s transportation systems into the Electric Age. Ahearn and Soper established the Ottawa Electric Railway in 1891, which replaced horse-drawn streetcars with electric ones that were manufactured in their Albert Street factory The streets of the city were crammed with thousands of onlookers the first day a motorcade of four electric streetcars clanged through Ottawa down Bank Street to Landsdowne Park?Ahearn himself at the wheel of the lead car. He built the first electric powered hot-water heating for the cars in the winter and invented a rotating brush sweeper to clear the track of snow.
In 1892, the world's first electrically cooked meal, the "electric dinner," was prepared at the Ottawa Windsor Hotel using Ahearn’s patented cooking heaters. See GC10T5D for more information about this fabulous meal.
In 1894, Soper and Ahearn's Ottawa Electric Company merged with two other local companies to form Consolidated Light, Heat & Power Limited. Mayor J.D. Ellis and electrical engineer/Ottawa Evening Journal owner P.D. Ross championed public ownership of electrical supply and, in 1905, the Municipal Electric Department of the City of Ottawa was created to launch a publicly-owned electricity system and service to challenge the large privately-owned company. The introduction of competition did succeed in reducing rates for commercially available electricity and the eventual merger formed the core of today’s Hydro Ottawa.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Gur qrivy znqr hf qb vg!