New York State History

The next development in the Corridor - large-scale harnessing of Niagara - was dramatic and epoch-making.

It began with a proposal to divert part of Niagara's torrents by a tunnel instead of by a canal. The plan originated with a division engineer of the Erie Canal, Thomas Evershed, who drew up blueprints in 1886 to show how mill sites could be sold along the route of an underground raceway.

It was soon clear that few potential customers could be accommodated beside the old-fashioned wheel pits. But how could power developed at one spot be made to turn wheels a mile or so away? In 1889 a number of methods—wire rope, water pressure, compressed air, electricity—gave almost equal promise, and it was a matter of considerable engineering re­search to determine which was the most promising one to adopt for Niagara's power.

Even when the owners of the raceway project made the momentous decision in favor of electricity, a host of problems remained to be solved. Was it possible to erect a central station for power development, as Thomas A. Edison was doing in New York City? If so, should direct current or the less-known alternating current be used?

These problems and many others were met and con­quered within the next few years. A great tunnel, more than a mile and a quarter in length, was carved through stone beneath
the town of Niagara Falls. Niagara water from above the rapids fell 140 feet at its upper end, and was carried away to a point below the Falls. Turbines were built, and 5,000 horse power generating units, the largest yet designed, were installed. Almost every step in the construction was a step in hitherto unexplored engineering realms, and no one could be sure that the effort would succeed until the first switch was thrown.

But it was successful, and soon Niagara Falls' plants were producing power in quantities far beyond that of any other power stations in existence.

With the success of the Niagara project, engineers looked with renewed interest at the tumbling waters that poured down from the Adirondacks. In the North Country, Hannawa Falls on the Raquette River near Potsdam was de­veloped in 1898. Lafayette Wetmore, the owner of a gristmill, invested his savings after a visit to Niagara Falls in a hydro­electric station at Belfort on the Beaver River. On West Canada Creek, flowing into the Mohawk, one of the first stations in the country to utilize as much as a 265-foot head of water was completed in 1901. Guy R. Beardslee, an inventive farmer, in 1896 built a 240-horsepower station on East Canada Creek at St. Johnsville. Two years later a hydro plant was constructed at Mechanicsville on the Hudson River. Many of the hydro plants now part of the Niagara Mohawk System had their beginnings in this era of rapidly expanding electric knowledge.