James J. McDonald was born October 22, 1886, in a log cabin in Stinnett, Wisconsin. Both of his parents, Thomas and Mehitable Mcevoy McDonald, were originally from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. He attended high school for three years at St. Croix River Falls High School, but graduated from New Richmond High School in 1907. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, in 1912, and his law degree in 1913. He entered into private practice in Portage, Wisconsin in 1913 and subsequently moved his practice to Madison in 1915, where he practiced law until his retirement in 1979. He married his wife, Grace Bogue, in 1915, and they had one son, James, Jr.
McDonald spent much of his early legal career working with several Wisconsin electric utilities in various capacities. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, he drew up contracts and helped issue bonds for Gay Electric Company, Burnett County Electric Company (sometimes referred to as “Dahlberg,” for its president), Merrimack Electric Company, Luck Light and Power, and Polk/Clam River Electric Company. He was a trustee for Luck Light and Power, in addition to his legal duties.
In 1919, McDonald helped found Badger Electric Service Company (BESCo) in DeForest, Wisconsin. The company quickly extended power lines to Poynette, Arlington, Morrisonville, Windsor, Sun Prairie, and Cottage Grove. According to a newspaper clipping, Badger Electric Service Company specialized more in bringing electrical lines to farms than any other company in the state at that time.
Initially, the company was run by William B. Bennet, president, James J. McDonald, secretary-treasurer, L. M. Libby, vice president and general manager, and B. B. Hicks, auditor. L. M. Libby fell ill in 1920, however, and was gradually replaced by E. B. Wayts, who was assistant general manager from 1920 and full general manager from 1923 onward.
Badger Electric Service Company built, ran, and serviced electric lines in rural areas in and around Dane County. It entered into contracts with its customers (both entire towns and individual farmers), and with its supply companies. It interacted with the banks that held its mortgages and its bond issues. McDonald drew up its annual reports, which were sent to the Wisconsin Railroad Commission, the Wisconsin Tax Commission, the Wisconsin Secretary of State, the Wisconsin Highway Commission, and the Internal Revenue Service. It participated in lawsuits with customers over rates and over damages. It investigated other electric companies and sometimes succeeded in buying them out. The company operated the Poynette power plant semi-independently, listing its profit and loss statements separately, and leased the plant to L. M. Libby in 1922.
In late spring, 1924, shortly after winning a messy battle to buy out the Wood Electric Company, the Badger Electric Service Company was bought out in turn by Wisconsin Power and Light, a Wisconsin division of the Middle West Utilities Company. The president of Wisconsin Power and Light was G. C. Neff, a correspondent of McDonald, while the president of the Middle West Utilities Company was Martin Insull, referred to in the collection as the “Insull interests.”
From the ashes of the Badger Electric Service Company, the same board members -– William B. Bennet as president, E. B. Wayts as vice president, James McDonald as secretary-treasurer, and B. B. Hicks as auditor and now also as general manager –- founded Badger Light and Power (BLP) in the early summer of 1924.
BLP functioned very similarly to Badger Electric Service Company, but in Wood and Portage counties instead of Dane County. The major exception is that BLP bought electricity for its customers wholesale from Wisconsin Valley Electric Company rather than operating its own plants.
In the winter of 1928, E. B. Wayts resigned as vice president and was replaced by a stockholder, B. E. Miller. In June, 1928, however, Badger Light and Power was bought by Wisconsin Power and Light, the same company that had bought Badger Electric Service Company.
Aside from Badger Electric Service Company and Badger Light and Power, McDonald was also a trustee and a paid legal advisor for Luck Light and Power. He helped with legal work for Luck Light and Power throughout the 1920s. He also did fairly extensive legal work for Polk/Clam River Electric Company from 1922 through 1930.
His involvement with all these companies was recognized by his repeated appointment to the Rural Lines Committee of the Wisconsin Utilities Association, a professional association of utilities operators, from at least 1922 through 1925.
In 1928 McDonald was chosen by an Omaha, Nebraska telephone company, W. N. Albertson, to represent their interests and act as liaison as they bought out six Wisconsin telephone companies.
Outside his work with the utility companies, McDonald was a charter member and president of the Madison Optimists Club, a 33rd degree Mason, a member of the board of deacons of the First Congregational Church of Madison, a member of the National Guard in the 1920s, and a member of the Madison Methodist Hospital's board of directors, 1929-1951. He retired in 1979 and died October 6, 1986.
