Powering a City by Catherine Nixon Cooke

Author:Catherine Nixon Cooke
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781595348449
Publisher: Trinity University Press
Published: 2017-11-15T16:00:00+00:00

The CPSB trust indenture called for independent board leadership that avoided politics. In 1961 that leadership included (left to right) Mayor Walter McAllister, General Manager Otto Sommers, board chair James Calvert, Gen. John Bennett, Leroy Denman Jr., and Melrose Holmgreen.

Bennett, who had been on the board for a decade, had an impressive military background as a combat bomber pilot in World War II. Stationed in England as part of the 8th Air Force, he led twenty-seven bombing missions over Germany and received a Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, Air Medal, and the Croix de Guerre with Palm, eventually earning the rank of major general. He had pushed hard for the change to the trust indenture the previous year, in favor of providing more money to the city, and in 1958, as chairman of the National Bank of Commerce, he oversaw the design and construction of the first skyscraper built in the city since the glory years preceding the Great Depression.

Holmgreen was president of Alamo Iron Works, which his grandfather established in 1878 on the banks of the San Antonio River. The foundry operation supplied steel for early projects like the Menger Hotel and became known for its production of manhole covers. By the 1960s it was producing industrial supply products, including paints, lubricants, and welding equipment. Brought on the board by his close friend Tuttle, Holmgreen was one of the original trustees of the San Antonio Medical Foundation, which acquired the land for the South Texas Medical Center, a large medical complex in the city’s northwest quadrant.

McAllister succeeded J. Edwin Kuykendall as mayor in 1961. His grandfather had come to Texas in the 1840s and was the first county judge at the Bexar County Courthouse, designed by architect James Riely Gordon in the late 1800s. McAllister earned a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Texas and worked briefly as a surveyor for Colorado River & Power. McAllister was an entrepreneur, establishing the San Antonio Savings Association with Henry Halff in 1921. President Eisenhower appointed him chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board in 1953. After his appointment to the city council in 1960 to fill an unexpired term, he was elected mayor, serving five two-year terms, until 1971.

The trustee appointments reflected the founding tenets that the organization be led by businessmen who actively supported their community and who were not linked to politics. They were more than qualified to meet the challenges ahead. The first challenge occurred when a backlash against gas meters spread through the country, gravitating to Houston and then to San Antonio. Media and citizens protested the use of new “demand meters” that measured electricity used and recorded peak consumption, allowing utility companies to charge more for peak usage. Only about 5 percent of CPSB’s customers had demand meters, but that seemed irrelevant to the public and the outcry grew. The board followed the lead of other utilities and did away with the meters, with lost revenues of $150,000 a year.

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