Hot Stick, 1920s

This is a handmade, 1920's hot stick consisting of a long wooden pole with its top end shaped like a bird's head and rope along its length (which, if pulled' would open the clamp). Modern hot sticks are insulated poles used by electric utility workers when working on live, energized high-voltage electric power lines, to protect themselves from electric shock. While modern hot sticks are typically made from fiberglass, early hot sticks, such as this, were made from wood and treated with shellac. This 1920's hot stick was most likely used on transmission lines that were de-energized. This meant that customers had to experience an outage in order for construction to occur on local power lines.