New York State History

The production of electricity is one thing; getting it to the customer is another. If the full head of falling Niagara water could be utilized, more electricity would be produced than could be locally consumed. Buffalo with a population of 250,000 was anxiously awaiting the time electric power could be brought to it—if such a feat were possible. Heretofore elec­tric current had not been transmitted successfully for more than a mile. The solution to the problem of how to transmit electricity over distances was achieved finally by producing it as alternating current and by employing transformers to raise voltage for transmission and to reduce it for distribution.

 When the Mayor of Buffalo in 1896 closed a switch, the streets of the city were lighted for the first time with electricity produced by the waterfall of Niagara. A new era was opened, for now no longer would factories be tied to the wheel pit—they would be free to locate almost anywhere.

With the improvements in transmission and the steady increase in the capacity of central stations, power lines were pushed farther and farther. In the Watertown area on the northwest slopes of the Adirondacks and at Spier Falls, Kanes Falls, and elsewhere in the Hudson Valley, enterprising men tapped what hitherto had been remote sources of power and sent high-voltage lines into metropolitan markets.