A documentary about a Baker University professor who helped bring electricity to Baldwin City will premiere Friday at The Lodge, 502 Ames St., in Baldwin City.

“Bauer, Baker and Baldwin City: Electrifying a Small Town’s Identity” will premiere at 5 p.m. Friday.

The eight-minute documentary captures the story of professor chemistry and physics W.C. Bauer, who in 1906 helped electrify the campus and the entire town.

The documentary was under the production of Joanne Tolkoff, director of marketing and communications and Baker. It was inspired by a research paper by Baker student Tracy Light, a senior in history.

“Her paper allowed us to realize there was a good story, something that had some depth and a story worth telling,” Tolkoff says. “We were one of the first communities in the area to install an electric grid system to bring electricity into the city limits. It was so unusual that we became a model for other towns.”

A panel discussion, led by John Richards, assistant professor at Baker, will follow the documentary.