Nikola Tesla built the Tesla Experimental Station on an empty site on Knob Hill in Colorado Springs in 1899, and the laboratory, which stood north of this location on North Foote Avenue, operated from May 1899 to January 1900. Born in Croatia on July 10, 1856, Tesla emigrated to the United States in 1884, became a U.S. citizen in 1891, and that same year invented the Tesla coil, a type of electrical circuit used to generate low-current high-voltage electricity. He invented, predicted, or contributed to the development of hundreds of technologies that are part of daily life, including the remote control, neon and fluorescent lights, wireless mechanisms, computers, smartphones, laser beams, x-rays, robotics, and especially alternating current, the basis of the present-day electrical system. The Tesla Experimental Station had the largest Tesla coil ever built, more than 49 feet in diameter, which reproduced the effects of lightning and its accompanying thunder. The laboratory's primary purpose was to conduct experiments with high frequency electricity, research wireless transmission of electrical power, and attempt to send a signal from Pikes Peak to Paris, France. Although Tesla spent only 9 months in Colorado Springs, he felt he made some of his most significant discoveries at this laboratory. Several years later, the building was torn down and the lumber reused, and the laboratory equipment was sold at a sheriff's auction.