At a young age, he dabbled in electricity, and became so thoroughly infatuated with the subject that he entered upon a course of study and experiment in Poperinghe.

Van Depoele's first electric railway was laid in Chicago early in 1883, and he exhibited another at an exposition in that city later in the same year.

In 1885, he invented and demonstrated the first trolley pole,[2] a device used by electric streetcars (trams) to collect current from overhead wires, introducing it publicly on a line installed temporarily at the Toronto Industrial Exhibition in autumn 1885,[2] reportedly reaching 65 mph.

A prolific inventor, Van Depoele was granted at least 243 United States patents between 1881 and 1894 for various electric inventions including railway systems, lights, generators, motors, current regulators, pumps, telpher systems, batteries, hammers, rock drills, brakes, a gearless locomotive, a coal-mining machine, and a pile-driver.

Van Depoele died on 18 March 1892 at the age of 45 in Lynn, Massachusetts, leaving a wife and several children.