Power System History

Woodside, CA, 1997 Credit: Louis Fabian Bachrach

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

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.

Museum

Shaver Lake Power Museum Building

Pelton Water Wheel inside Shaver Lake Power Museum Building

Power Plant Exhibit Fresno Bee, June 22, 2013 (pdf)

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. Credit: Gail Whistance

Mead in the field on an industrial archeology expedition explaining early lineman techniques to Bruce Whistance. Credit: Gail Whistance