Telluride

At the beginning of last century, Lucien Nunn, an engineer and successful hydroelectric power developer from Colorado constructed a power plant in Beaver Canyon, Utah.  The plant featured a 4,500 foot penstock, two turbines turning two generators, and a two megawatt capacity.  In its first year of operation, the Nunn plant sent electricity to the mines at the boom town of Frisco, Utah, more than 50 miles to the west.  Eventually, Nunn's Beaver Canyon plant, part of his Telluride Power Company, provided reliable electricity to most of Beaver, Piute, Sevier, and Sanpete Counties.  Something it continues to do today.

Last week, Jim Gray, an engineer working for Beaver City, which now owns the Telluride power plant in Beaver Canyon, took me through the building.  The guts of the operation—the paired turbine-generators—are shown in the picture (above).  With the exception of the white painted generator at the back of the picture, all of the equipment is original.  That is, the two turbines, in the center of the picture on the concrete platform, have been operating without replacement since April of 1908—107 years.  Likewise, the generator in the foreground:  It has been refurbished, but is the original generator, installed by Nunn.  Wow.  What else needs to be said?  Nunn's work speaks for itself.