Silver Bow Electric Light Company 1896 - Montana RARE

Beautifully engraved Certificate from the Silver Bow Electric Light Company issued in 1896. This historic document was printed by Vandercook Company and has an ornate border around it with a extraordinary vignette of the sun, earth, arc lamp, moon and the company's name in fancy print. The face of the certificate has imprinted hte "Thomson Houston System". This item is hand signed by the company's President (H. L. Frank) and Secretary (Lee Mantle) and is over 111 years old. The cetificate was issued to C.F. Mussigbrod.


Certificate Vignette

The company's headquarters was located in the City of Butte, Montana. Butte is located in the County of Silver Bow.

Lee Mantel, one-time mayor of Butte, was born in Birmingham, England, December 13, 1851. In 1864, his family emigrated to America and settled in Salt Lake City. Mantle worked on neighboring farms, and aided in the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. In 1872, Mantle was given charge of the Western Union office at Pleasant Valley, Idaho. After five years, he moved to Butte where he opened an office for Wells Fargo Express Company. He was also Butte’s first insurance agent. Mantle became involved in municipal affairs and was one of Butte’s first aldermen. He founded and published the Daily Inter-Mountain, which became a power in Republican politics. In 1882 Mantle was elected to the lower house of the Montana Territorial Legislature. He served two terms and was also the Speaker. Mantle served as a delegate to the Republican Convention in Chicago in 1884. In 1890 he was chairman of the Republican State Convention in Butte and by 1892 as mayor of Butte, Mantle had become a permanent member of the Republican State Convention at Great Falls.

He ran for the Senate in 1890 but lost by two votes in the Legislature to Thomas Power. In 1895 Wilbur Sanders (a Montana Senator) left the Senate and Governor Richards appointed Mantle to fill the vacancy, but the U.S. Senate denied the Governor the right to appoint when the Legislature failed to elect someone. Mantle therefore waited until the Legislature convened. He was elected unanimously to go to Washington where he served from 1895 to 1899.

In the Senate, Mantle was active in promoting the development of Montana, especially in mining, ranching, and real estate interests. In 1896, Mantle organized and chaired the Silver Republican Party of Montana, while in 1897 he was named President of the Mineral Land Association. In this capacity, he defeated take-over efforts be the great Northern Pacific Railroad and managed to maintain vast mineral areas for the state.

Lee Mantle died in Los Angeles, California on November 18, 1934.

Thomson-Houston was one of the largest manufacturers of electric lighting and generating equipment in the 1880s and was one of the companies which eventually formed General Electric.

In the late 1880's Professors Elihu Thomson and Edwin Houston began experimenting with and patenting improvements on existing arc lamp and dynamo designs. In 1880 after being approached by a group of businessmen from New Britain CT, Thomson & Houston agreed to the formation of a company that would engage in the commercial manufacture of their arc lighting system. This was the American Electric Company which existed until 1883 when it was reorganized and renamed the Thomson-Houston Electric Company. The Thomson-Houston Company was quite successful and grew to compete with the more established Brush and Edison companies. In 1889 in an attempt to avoid patent disputes over a double-carbon arc lamp design, Thomson-Houston purchased a controlling interest in the Brush Company, along with the Swan Incandescent Light Company which was owned by Brush. Swan manufactured an incandescent system that had been developed at about the same time as Edison's. In 1892 Thomson-Houston merged with the Edison companies to form the giant General Electric Company.