Baldwin, Cyrus Grandison

Biographical Note

Cyrus Grandison Baldwin: Pioneer Developer of Electric Power in the Pomona Valley by Dr. E. Wilson Lyon, President, Pomona College.

Cyrus Grandison Baldwin was first president of Pomona College from 1890-1897. He graduated from Oberlin College, and from that institution he brought to the newly established Congregational college in California . . high academic standards and the principles.

He had some knowledge of the growing use of electric power, both in Europe and in the eastern part of the United States, and he began to think of lighting the Pomona valley and the region as far away as San Bernardino by using the water power of the San Antonio Canyon, [in the San Bernardino Mts.] His enthusiasm was contagious and a group of men in Pomona, some of whom had joined in founding the new college, united with him to establish a company to convert the power of the water into electricity and to bring it to the homes and offices of the new Anglo-Saxon community which was replacing the Spanish ranchos of earlier California. From their efforts the San Antonio Light and Power Company was born in 1891. The company planned to bore a tunnel through the Hogsback at the upper level, thereby establishing a steep flume which would give a drop of nearly 400 feet to the power house below. The power would then be distributed by high voltage transmission to the valley, This practice, a common-place today, had never before been undertaken in California. President Baldwin and his associates were therefore proposing to establish the first hydroelectric installation for high voltage transmission in our state.