Today James Fitzgerald and Joseph Fentress take care of all three El Paso cemeteries, the work at Evergreen being under a board composed of Ivan Snow, president; Loren Ludwig, secretary-treasurer; R. W. Vincent, Richard Mayne and P. H. Andrews, trustees. On August 14, 1914 a plan for individual endowments for perpetual care of lots was adopted, and the cost set at $50 for a full lot or $25 for a half lot. Lots were sold thereafter with this cost included. Because income from invested funds became sharply lower, it was necessary to seek added contributions from lot owners and interested parties in 1952 so that the cemetery might be maintained in its usual fine condition. The price of lots today is necessarily higher, but the perpetual care seems assured.
On August 4, 1870, William Neifing received a deed for 2.70 acres in the northwest corner of the Evergreen Cemetery. The following day he transferred the property to Bishop Foley of Chicago, head of the Roman Catholic Church, Illinois Diocese. It was named the Saint Joseph's Cemetery, and has been the burial site for the German members of the St. Mary's congregation in El Paso.
On October 4, 1870, Bishop Foley purchased a plot of land one and one-half miles north of town on the present Route 51 from John and Rosetta DeBolt. This plot is named the St. Mary's Cemetery and is used by the Irish members of St. Mary's Church. James Fitzgerald has been sexton of both these cemeteries since 1938.
LIGHTS AND POWER. It was not until 1890 that an effort was made to provide street lights for the streets of the village. The minutes of the October 6 meeting of the council stated: "A proposition to furnish street lamps, gratis, on Second Street, the city to furnish the oil to light and keep in good order, was on motion adopted. On motion the supervisor was instructed to keep the street lamps cleaned and filled with oil and in good order; also the night watchman was to light and extinguish the same." Just who furnished these first lamps we cannot learn.
A contract was let September 14, 1891 by the City Council to M. A. Adams and Lee S. Straight by which they agreed to provide fifty electric lights of thirty-two candle power, and to pump water for the city. They were to receive $750 per annum for the lights and $500 for the pumping. They erected a plant on West Front Street next to the water tower with power furnished by a seventy horsepower engine. When the lights were first turned on November 21, 1891, the project had grown to include sixty-seven street lights and over 200 lights installed by various merchants. Although these 16 candle- power lights were a great improvement, several aldermen remained skeptical, one freely predicting that "the first good wind will blow them out."
Straight sold his interest to R. W. Gough early in 1894, and that fall a seventy- foot smokestack was erected to replace the sheet iron makeshifts previously used. The plant was soon crowded to capacity,
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