The Power of Niagara

For generations, the Niagara River's waters drew efforts to harness their power for industry and electricity. In 1757, Daniel Joncaire built a sawmill along the upper Niagara River to cut lumber for ships and for a chapel at Fort Niagara. During the 1800s, mills and factories along the American Rapids shoreline used an inlet canal for water power, and in the 1820s Augustus Porter, who operated a paper mill, envisioned a canal carrying water from above the falls through the village to the lower river gorge. Although completed in 1857, that canal saw only limited use beginning in 1875. Jacob F. Schoellkopf bought it in 1877 and opened Schoellkopf Power Station No. 1 in 1881 and No. 2 in 1896, with both stations supplying direct current to local businesses. In 1895, Powerhouse No. 1, also called Dean Adams Station, opened above the falls, and the next year Nikola Tesla's alternating induction motor system sent power from Niagara Falls to Buffalo, New York, in the world's first large-scale commercial transmission of alternating current. Powerhouse No. 2 opened in 1905, and together the plants produced 80,000 kilowatts of electricity. Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition of 1901 became famous as a city of lights using Tesla's alternating current system. When Schoellkopf Power Station No. 3 was completed in 1924, it ranked among the world's largest power stations, but on June 7, 1956, rock slides destroyed two-thirds of it. One section remained in service until 1961, when the Robert Moses Power Plant opened farther downriver, using the gorge's greater drop in elevation and producing an average of 13 billion kilowatts per hour.

Niagara Falls, New York · United States