POWERGRAMS

PROFILE 29 Three generations of Hawkins family worked for APC In 1917, as the world was engulfed in World War I, the young Alabama Power Company had just finished building a dam at Lock 12 on the Coosa River and was finishing construction on Unit No. 1 at the Warrior Reserve Steam Plant. The energy from Warrior Reserve was needed in the Muscle Shoals area to support nitrate production for the war. At that time, Alabama Power construction projects were some of the largest the state had ever seen, drawing construction personnel from all over the United States. Mississippi-native Crawford Buchanon (C.B.) Hawkins, a recent graduate of the newly founded electrical engineering program at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, saw an opportunity to put his new degree to use closer to home. He left railroad work in Indiana to join the company on Jan. 4, 1917. While only on the job a short time, Hawkins, like many other men in support of the war, joined the armed forces and left for training in Louisville, Kentucky. The war ended prior to his deployment, so he returned to Alabama Power in the Meter, Commercial and Operating departments. In 1920, he married Helen, whom he had met while working in Indiana. She was an associate editor for Powergrams prior to their marriage, and then was executive secretary at Thomas Foundry for nearly 30 years. C.B. grew in his career with the company, becoming an operating engineer in 1927 and superintendent of Southern Division in 1931. In 1935, he was transferred to Birmingham, where he continued to be promoted. Hawkins was the assistant to the manager of distribution and transmission at the time of his death in 1954. In an article in Powergrams, Hawkins' employees C.B. Hawkins at a substation in the 1930s.

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