Dick Hubert’s Worldview: An 1899 underground hydroelectric plant built in 16 months—could it be done today?
April 18, 2024 at 12:32 a.m.
Travel is broadening, as the old saying goes, especially in your own country.
So, on a family trip last week I was fascinated learning the history of one of the first hydroelectric plants built in this country in just 18 months which opened for business on July 31, 1899 at Snoqualmie Falls, Washington State—a plant that transmitted AC power!
Watching a Spring runoff-filled Snoqualmie Falls with its adjacent (and modernized) plant still pumping out electricity to the cities and towns in the Greater Seattle region, I couldn’t help but think how long it takes today to build critical infrastructure.
There were no NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) complainers throwing up obstacles to the construction of the Snoqualmie Falls plant back in 1898—as there have been locally in delaying the construction of the court-mandated Westchester Joint Water Works (WJWW) water filtration plant which even now faces its last NIMBY obstacles at the Town of Harrison Planning Board after the County Legislature approved the land swap to allow it to be built on former County airport property.
With the spray from the Falls in my face, I was inspired to take in the history of just how this marvel of engineering and infrastructure came to pass.
Students of American engineering history know that George Westinghouse introduced alternating electrical current (AC) at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893. AC current could be transmitted over long distances unlike Thomas Edison’s DC current.
That 1893 fair brought together the fair’s president, the wealthy Chicago businessman William Taylor Baker, and Baker’s son Charles, a trained engineer who had failed in several real estate ventures in Seattle and then drew up plans to construct and build a hydroelectric plant at Snoqualmie Falls to supply Seattle with electricity.
Baker’s father needed no persuasion. He had been dazzled by his firsthand look at Westinghouse’s invention. So when Charles asked his father if he could use his good name and credit to order equipment and hire workers for the project, the answer was an immediate “Yes.”
What followed is, in our era of over-regulation and permits from a plethora of agencies, downright startling.
To quote from the website “WedgewoodinSeattlehistory.com”:
“By 1898 Charles Baker had bought up all the land around Snoqualmie Falls and he began working on the world’s first power plant to be constructed underground, bored through solid rock next to and underneath the Falls.
In 16 months the plant was completed and on July 31, 1899, a powerhouse at Third and South Main Streets in Seattle received the electricity which had been generated 38 miles away.”
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the incredibly short construction schedule, what kind of tools they used, and how they were able to do all this in solid bedrock 260 feet beneath the surface.
Baker had a series of business disasters too numerous to detail here which led to his company being bought out and now owned by a public agency which oversees two power plants with 53 megawatts of generating power.
But I can’t help wondering whether a 21st century Baker could be successful today building wind farms offshore or on land; pumping natural gas from Pennsylvania to Westchester County; or even competing with the Chinese in building and distributing solar panels. Let alone working at the WJWW trying to get a water filtration plant built against obstinate foes.
America seems to have lost a lot of its pioneering spirit which made the country great as we have instituted laws, agencies, and a public mindset that seem opposed to building anything important quickly and on time.
The biggest upcoming test I can think of: how long will it take to build a new bridge over Baltimore Harbor to replace the Francis Scott Key Bridge demolished in a collision with an off-course container ship?
Dick Hubert, a retired television news producer-writer-reporter living in Rye Brook, has been honored with the Peabody Award, the DuPont Columbia Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Journalism Award.
Editor’s Note: This column, written by Dick Hubert, represents his opinion and not that of this newspaper.
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