The Washburn Plant

In the early 1920s, most North Dakota towns were served by small local power plants producing direct current electric power, but in 1926 Otter Tail Power Company of Fergus Falls, Minnesota, was among several companies building a series of alternating current power stations linked by highlines across the state. Its 1926 program included a highline west from Carrington to Washburn, served by a new brick and steel lignite-coal-burning power plant on the bank of the Missouri River west of Washburn with a generating capacity of 3,000 kilowatts. Completed and placed in operation on October 12, 1926, it was considered the first sizeable power plant to burn lignite coal in North Dakota. It initially used lignite mined near Wilton by the Washburn Lignite Coal Co. and delivered by the Soo Line railroad. Otter Tail took over operation of the mine in 1928, and in 1930 the mine was leased by the Truax-Traer Coal Company, which began surface mining. That mine closed in 1946, after which lignite was hauled for about a year from Truax-Traer's Dakota Star Mine near Hazen, before the Custer Mine near Garrison became the plant's coal source. The Washburn plant operated at full capacity until hydroelectric power from Garrison Dam became available in 1956, then remained on standby service until the end of 1969, when it was shut down and demolished.

North Dakota · United States