Nikola Tesla

On November 15, 1896, Buffalo became the first city in the world to receive long-distance alternating current electricity, a development that eventually led to the electrification of the globe. The Buffalo Enquirer called it “the journey of God’s own Lightning to the benefit of all mankind.” Behind this achievement was Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-born physicist, prolific inventor, and naturalized American citizen. In addition to inventing the AC rotating magnetic field motor, he received patents for hundreds of inventions, including AC polyphase induction generators, AC polyphase induction motors, wireless telegraphy, hydro-electric generators, remote control, and speedometers, and he also did pioneering research in fluorescent and neon lights, microwaves, X rays, radar, robotics, solar energy, and wireless communication. Tesla and George Westinghouse won the Niagara River Power Project contract to transmit AC electricity from Niagara Falls to Buffalo, based largely on Tesla's patents. A two mile tunnel was engineered from the rapids to the Niagara River to hydro-drive eleven Tesla-patented AC 5000 Hp generators. As controlling engineer of the Niagara Power Project, Tesla surveyed progress at the Falls in 1896 and predicted that the Falls and Buffalo would join each other and become one great city. To celebrate Buffalo's position as the first Electric City on Earth, a gala Power Banquet was held on January 12, 1897, at the newly built Ellicott Square Building, where Tesla said that other cities would soon follow Buffalo's lead and that Buffalo was sure to become one of the greatest industrial centers of the globe. Tesla had many friends, including Mark Twain and Stanford White, yet he valued solitude, saying that originality thrives in seclusion and that invention is born in being alone. He never married, saying an inventor's intense nature would give everything to love and take everything from the chosen field. He also said he was not guided by money but by a desire to harness the forces of nature to the service of mankind, and that all his money had been invested into experiments to make life easier for humanity. In 1907, when George Westinghouse asked him to renegotiate his royalty contract, Tesla tore it up to help the company survive. He was owed $300 million and was given $60,000. Tesla never owned a home, horse, or automobile. He lived his entire life in America in New York City hotels, including the Saint Regis, the Governor Clinton, the Pennsylvania, the Waldorf-Astoria, and the New Yorker. He arrived in America with 4 cents in his pocket and a few books, and he died on January 7, 1943, alone and impoverished. His last 10 years at the New Yorker Hotel were funded by the Westinghouse Corporation.

Buffalo, New York · United States