For centuries, mechanics knew how to run machinery using the weight of falling water, but the sixty-foot drop at the head of AuSable Chasm was difficult to harness because early mills had to perch on the brink of the river, exposed to ice and high water. Not until 1876 did a factory take full advantage of the plunge over this rock face. By then, travelers were descending 166 stairs into the gorge for boat rides past striking rock formations, and industry and tourism have thrived side by side ever since. The hamlet that grew around the waterfall was called Birmingham Falls, after a city in the industrial Midlands of England, and a county atlas published in 1876 showed a paper mill, sash factory, and starch mill clustered around the falls. The dam channels water into a 260-foot canal cut into the bedrock of the bluff and sends it to the Rack House, where a trash rack removes debris before the water enters two penstocks leading to the powerhouse about 100 feet below at the foot of the bluff. There, two turbine generators use the flowing water to spin wheels and vertical shafts connected to generators that produce electricity; the plant was built to hold three turbine-generators, but only two were installed, and at full power the facility produces 3000kW for the NYSEG grid.