Power on the East Side

Power on the East Side. . During the nineteenth century, mills at the falls were driven directly by waterpower. Sawmills were often on platforms built out over the river, where water drove machinery through systems of shafts, gears, and belts. In the flour mills, water was channeled from the river into underground raceways, to fall with force over huge turbines deep below. By the end of the century, however, new technologies for power generation developed that untied industry from dependence on the falls and allowed the city to expand away from the river., Hydroelectricity became the leading industry on the east bank early in the twentieth century. The Minneapolis General Electric Company constructed a station on Main Street in 1894-95 to supply power for the city's electric street lights. Other plants were built to provide power to the fast-growing electric streetcar system. A lower dam and hydroelectric station were constructed in 1897-98 to capture the drop of rapids below the falls, soon followed by a coal-burning steam plant just upstream (1903). In 1908, a hydroelectric plant was built on Hennepin Island. The first Main Street Power Station burned in 1911, but was immediately replaced by the building that stands on Main Street today., Electric streetcars gave way to buses in the 1950s, and demand for hydroelectricity to run the city's transit systems came to an end. One by one, the large riverside plants were adapted and changed. The 1903 plant near the east end of the Stone Arch Bridge was sold to the Northern States Power in 1954, then to the University of Minnesota in 1983 to provide steam heat for university buildings. The Lower St. Anthony Plant washed away in 1987. On Hennepin Island, Northern States Power Company continues to run the only hydro-powered facility still in operation at the falls. Hydroelectricity produced at that plant today serves about 9,000 homes in the city of Minneapolis.