PARK RIDGE, N.J.—Long before the days of backyard swimming pools and air conditioning, boys chill out at the Electric Pond spillway in Park Ridge in this 1920s photo. Note the one-piece bathing suits that were still popular for males at the time.
The United States had seen its first alternating current hydroelectric power plant in 1893 at the site of national landmark Niagara Falls. A little over a decade later in 1907, the Pascack Valley opened its first at Mill Pond in Park Ridge, known by some long-timers as “The Electric Light Pond” or “Electric Lake.”
“Park Ridge became the first community in the area to generate its own electricity,” according to the Pascack Historical Society. “This improvement allowed the infrastructure of Park Ridge to grow. Street lights, public, private and commercial property all made use of the electric power that was generated.”
Shortly after the plant went into operation, Park Ridge’s dirt lanes were illuminated for the first time by electric streetlights.
In the 1920s and 1930s the pond was also a popular recreation spot for the youth of Park Ridge, with children swimming in the summer and skating in the winter months.
A local newspaper report from the summer of 1928 reads, “Electric Lake has been a Mecca for swimmers from all over Bergen and Rockland counties during the present hot spell. Bathers are using this lake from early in the morning until very late at night.”
The utility underwent many changes throughout the years from its humble beginnings of serving only 18 residents in 1907. In 1919 a gasoline engine was installed to augment the hydropower to meet a growing demand, and then in 1928 the water turbine was replaced entirely by an electric motor.
“Creating this 12-acre reservoir, dam and power plant might seem wasteful for only 21 years of operation, but Park Ridge’s gamble with electricity really paid off,” according to a history of Mill Pond on the Pascack Historical Society’s website. “The original creation of the electric poles and the distribution system allowed Park Ridge to create a unique relationship with the developing power utilities. To this day Park Ridge is one of only nine towns in New Jersey who run their own non-profit electricity company and have among the lowest electrical rates in the state.
