This album of well-composed large-format photographs chronologically documents the construction of the hydro-dam and power plant at Trenton Falls, a waterfall on West Canada Creek in Trenton, New York. From...
This album of well-composed large-format photographs chronologically documents the construction of the hydro-dam and power plant at Trenton Falls, a waterfall on West Canada Creek in Trenton, New York.
From the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University:
The construction of the hydro-dam and the earliest power generation facility by the Utica Electric Light and Power Company began late in 1899 and was completed by the spring of 1901. With a natural vertical drop of over 200' from the top of the Cascade of the Alahambra to the base of Sherman Fall and the addition of another 50 feet by construction of the dam, a substantial hydraulic head of 266' could be obtained by conducting the water through a pipe seven feet in diameter, 3700 feet along the bank of the chasm to a point near the old stairway, where the pipe would drop 90 feet vertically to a power house at the floor of the chasm (Thomas, 1951). After all construction was completed, and the power generators were installed, the Trenton Falls facility in total was the highest head plant using turbine power generators in the country. Moreover, it used the first turbines designed as well as constructed by Americans (Thomas, 1951).