Power System History - 1995-Present
Photo Credit: Louis Fabian Bachrach, Woodside, CA, 1997
History
- Gone to Bodie (PDF, 8 pages, 110.4MB)
- The Evolution of High Tension Power Distribution
- Remnants of the Southern Power Co.
- Remnants of The 12th (---) of Christmas
-
The Kern-1 Line—1907 (12 page PDF, 1.6MB)
Postscript to Kern-1 Line—1907 During the fall of 2006, a devastating brush fire ravaged the entire area where we found these specimens. The brush that had sheltered them for 85 years became an inferno, and any porcelain near it was crazed and shattered into small shards. These amazing pieces of electrical history escaped their certain fate by only three years. To read more click here.
Museum
Shaver Lake Power Museum Building
Pelton Water Wheel inside Shaver Lake Power Museum Building
Mead with a scale-model hydroelectric power plant he built for educational use. The pump at the lower-left delivers pressurized water through a needle valve to the small Pelton waterwheel in the clear polycarbonate enclosure. The Pelton wheel is mounted on the shaft of a generator located behind the panel. In this photo by Lloyd Watts, the generator is synchronized to the line, as can be seen from the instruments.
Insulators
Mead and Mike Spadafora with a 1912 crossarm they
discovered in a swamp in upstate New York.
Photo Credit: Gail Whistance
Mead in the field on an industrial archeology expedition explaining
early lineman techniques to Bruce Whistance.
Photo Credit: Gail Whistance