The Great Falls Power Plant, opened in 1914, uses falling water from the Passaic River to generate electricity and was originally built to supply Paterson’s mills, later distributing power to homes and businesses throughout the region and producing enough electricity for the daily needs of 11,000 homes. Its roots lie in the Society for Establishing Usefull Manufacturers, founded in 1791 during George Washington’s presidency and created by Alexander Hamilton to develop the power potential of the Great Falls as part of his goal of achieving American economic and industrial independence through manufacturing. The society controlled land around the falls and water rights to the river, built Paterson’s three-level raceway system by 1838, and helped turn the city into the manufacturing center Hamilton had envisioned, but in the early 1910’s chronic water shortages led it to convert the mills along the raceway to electric power and to build the hydroelectric plant, along with an auxiliary coal-fueled steam plant, to reduce reliance on direct waterpower. In 1945 the plant and its property were sold to the City of Paterson and leased to PSE&G, then shut down in 1969 because of age, modest size, and the need for upgrades. Preservation-minded citizens later developed a plan to restore operations, and after the Paterson Municipal Utilities Authority was established in 1980, a partnership with the Great Falls Hydroelectric Company raised $14.5 million in private investment to refurbish the plant, replacing the 1914 turbines and generators with modern equipment while preserving the building’s historic appearance and leaving one original unit as a display; the plant resumed operation in 1986, and Algonquin Power of Toronto took over operations in 2000. Water supply in the Passaic remains variable, so the plant runs most fully when water is plentiful and sometimes shuts down in low-water periods, while some water must always spill over the falls for scenery and downstream environmental quality. At the base of the Great Falls, water is drawn from above the falls into penstocks that direct it to turbines, whose motion turns generators that produce electricity through electromagnetism; the water is then returned to the river as clean as it entered, without significant waste or the burning of fossil fuels.