|
gates on the dam were closed in mid-January 1916, and the reservoir began to fill. The doubters
<br /> were finally silenced on January 20,when the glow of electric streetlights illuminated six miles
<br /> of the community's roadways.21
<br /> Newspaper headlines proclaimed that the"Long Hoped For Electric Lights and Power Now [are]
<br /> a Reality and Elk River People Are Jubilant."The paper observed that`Elk River has truly been
<br /> slow about getting electricity,but perhaps it has been best after all because we now have a power
<br /> plant so much superior to those of other small towns that it is indeed the envy of all."It reported
<br /> that Elk River's plant could supply"97,500 sixteen candlepower incandescent lamps"and all of
<br /> the wondrous electric appliances being introduced in that era, including"flat irons, electric fans,
<br /> vacuum cleaners, and the various household utensils, such as toasters, coffee percolators and
<br /> even electric heating apparatus."22
<br /> Elk River's electricity was produced by a 200-horsepower turbine manufactured by the James
<br /> Leffel Company of Springfield, Ohio. The 156 KVA alternator-generator unit,provided by the
<br /> Minneapolis Electric Machinery Company, was described as a"new high efficiency frictionless
<br /> vertical type, . . . which is coupled direct to the vertical shaft of the waterwheel."In this
<br /> arrangement, the generator rested on steel bearings immersed in an oil bath. Earlier generators
<br /> were driven by belts,which provided unsteady, flickering light. With direct coupling, the current
<br /> was even. The system was controlled and monitored by a three-panel marble switchboard.
<br /> Charles Walters, an Elk River native, returned from Minneapolis to supervise the plant. By 1920,
<br /> he had been replaced by Mr. White from Princeton. In the following year, L. G. Nelson moved
<br /> from Chicago to take the helm, and he remained as superintendent until the mid-1940s.23
<br /> The equipment was housed in a 30-foot by 30-foot plant. With an eye to future expansion,the
<br /> building was large enough to accommodate an additional turbine-generator unit. The facility's
<br /> superstructure was dressed in textured brick supplied by the Hydraulic Pressed Brick Company
<br /> of Minneapolis and manufactured in Menomonie, Wisconsin. The building rested on a poured
<br /> concrete foundation from which a 256-foot-Iong, straight-crested,reinforced-concrete gravity
<br /> dam extended to the southwest. The southwestern end held three twelve-by-twelve-foot taintor
<br /> gates, which maintained the reservoir's twelve-foot head. Earth fill at either end extended the
<br /> structure to a total of 450 feet. Steel piling was driven into the riverbed to secure the dam,which
<br /> was located just upstream from the Main Street Bridge and about one hundred feet from the site
<br /> of the old mill dam.24
<br /> The dam,power plant, and an outdoor substation near the plant were designed by J. C. Jacobson,
<br /> a Minneapolis engineer who produced a number of hydroelectric facilities in Minnesota and
<br /> Wisconsin. He began his practice in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, as a millwright and"practical
<br /> 21 "Hydro Plant in 48th Year Is Still Producing KW at Elk River";"Elk River's Fine New Power Plant,"Sherburne
<br /> County Star News,January 27, 1916.
<br /> 22"Electric Current Now Turned On,"Sherburne County Star News,January 27, 1916;"Here's Man who Furnishes
<br /> Elk River Electricity";"Elk River's Fine New Power Plant."
<br /> 23"Elk River's Fine New Power Plant";"Utilities Continues Tradition of Service it Started Here in 1916,"
<br /> Sherburne County Star News,c. 1958;"Negotiations Completed by REA for Purchase[of]Electric Company,"
<br /> Sherburne County Star News,July 12, 1943;Elk River Power and Light annual reports to the Minnesota Tax
<br /> Commission, 1920-1935,State Archives,Minnesota Historical Society,Saint Paul.
<br /> 24"Elk River's Fine New Power Plant."
<br /> 77
<br />
|