Flashback Friday: Baking cookie samples

The Public Service Building's model kitchen in 1931. Home economists at our predecessor company, The Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Co., baked sample cookies in the model kitchen at the Public Service Building in downtown Milwaukee in 1931. The company invited garden clubs, church groups and lodge auxiliaries to spend afternoons watching Home Service Bureau demonstrations in a effort to expand acceptance and use of electric appliances.

Are you hungry for more holiday cookies? So are we!

Although our annual Cookie Book is released around the holidays, planning for the book is a year-round project. It’s mid-January and we’re already looking for recipes for our next book.

Customers of We Energies are again being asked to submit recipes for the company’s 2013 Cookie Book. Original recipes can be submitted online. Recipes will be considered for the 2013 Cookie Book and possibly future editions.

The We Energies Cookie Book dates back to 1928, featuring hundreds of delicious recipes passed down from generation to generation. Past issues featured recipes from former and current employees -- until last year, when customer recipes were included for the first time. The response was great, and the company is again asking customers to submit their family favorites. Customers also are encouraged to share the history behind their recipes.

Submit recipe

The 2013 We Energies Cookie Book will be unveiled in November, with major distribution events at Miller Park in Milwaukee and Time Warner Cable Field at Fox Cities Stadium (Timber Rattlers stadium) in Appleton. Customers who submit recipes will be notified in advance if their recipe is selected for this year’s book.

Fox6 report

Flashback Friday: 1890s electric streetcar

Beginning in the 1860s, horse-drawn streetcars moved people around Milwaukee, but on April 3, 1890, the Wells-Wisconsin line of the West Side Railroad Co. became the city's first line to use electric streetcars.

West Side Railroad later merged into the Milwaukee Street Railway Co., which became The Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Co. in 1896. The company was a predecessor of Wisconsin Electric Power Co. -- now doing business as We Energies.

Flashback Friday: Freezing fires

In 1945, we added a mobile carbon dioxide fire extinguisher to our power plant safety equipment.

The extinguisher contained 750 pounds of carbon dioxide that created a smothering effect at very low temperature. When the container was opened, the carbon dioxide expanded to form a gas in the atmosphere. Because the gas was heavier than oxygen, it created a "blanket" around the burning fuel and displaced the oxygen surrounding the fuel to extinguish a fire.

Carbon dioxide fire extinguishers were invented by the Walter Kidde Co. in 1924 and are still used today.