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Freelan Oscar (F. O.) Stanley made a career putting water to work. Famous for co-inventing the steam-powered Stanley Steamer auto in 1897, he employed water yet again in 1909 to build a hydroelectric powerplant on the Fall River in Estes Park, Colorado. In 1903, Stanley had moved to little Estes Park, 65 miles northwest of Denver, to combat his tuberculosis. The dry mountain air and plentiful sunshine aided his recovery. In 1909, realizing the town’s need for tourist accommodations that matched its majestic scenery, he built the luxurious Stanley Hotel (later made famous as the inspiration of Stephen King’s 1977 thriller, The Shining). Desiring a world-class resort, Stanley built his powerplant to equip the country’s first “all-electric” hotel with wired heating, cooking, and lighting. The Town of Estes Park soon requested electricity for its street lights, and residents ordered the modern service for their homes.
The plant produced power until it was severely damaged in 1982 by the Lawn Lake Flood. Since 2002, it is an interpretive site and it schedules free tours. [
EstesParkNews]
This facility is now part of the
Estes Park Museum.
"Built three miles northwest of Estes Park, the one-story, concrete-floored 28 X 26-foot frame building housed a turbine and a 200-kilowatt generator. The turbine was driven by water siphoned from nearby Cascade Lake via a twenty-inch steel intake pipe." [
HistoryColorado]
Obviously, the diversion dam that created Cascade Lake has been breached since the water is no longer needed by the power plant.
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ReporterHerald
The plant started in 1908 with this Hug water wheel driving a 200kw Western Electric generator.
[I worked for Bell Labs, and I heard that Western Electric made things other than phone equipment. This is the first time I have seen some of its electric power equipment.] |
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ReporterHerald
One of the several expansions of the plant was this "900 horsepower Worthington-Francis turbine connected to a 680-kilowatt General Electric generator" that was added in 1921. |
Another view of the original unit.
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OldTacomaMarine
The original 50hp diesel engine unit is on display.
It is a Model Y-V with a bore of 14" and a stroke of 17" that runs at 257rpm.
"The Fall River Hydroplant installed a second stationary diesel engine in 1935, a six-cylinder Fairbanks-Morse. This engine was removed sometime in the mid-1940s and its fate is unknown." |
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| A history of the power plant starts at 1:56. |
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