Harnessing Waterpower

Harnessing Waterpower. . , Lumbering was the first major industry at Saint Anthony Falls., Detail from Map of Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1885 Minneapolis Public Library Special Collections, In 1847, scouts reported that forests upstream held "more than 70 saw-mills can saw in 70 years." Soon, thousands of logs floated downriver to "platform" sawmills on dams at the falls. Engineer William de la Barre observed the "enormous waste of merchantable and useful lumber" by the sawmills in 1878: "Hundreds of cords of wood ... were thrown into the river daily, and no one thought of raising a hand in an attempt to save it. Why should they? The river was full of logs which had to be got out of the way to make room for more logs, and there were oceans of logs still to come." But by the early twentieth century, the "endless" forests were depleted and the city's lumber era was over., An 1870 fire destroyed the original east bank sawmills at the upstream end of Hennepin Island. This 1878 photograph shows the dam and mills rebuilt near where you stand. Another fire damaged the mills in 1887, opening the dam for new development. Minnesota Historical Society, In the days before electricity, power source and user had to be physically connected., Saint Anthony Falls spun primitive turbines ... that turned gears, pulleys, shafts, belts, and cable ... that drove machinery. To bring this "hydro-mechanical" power to a factory on Nicollet Island, the Island Power Company installed a loop of cable to a turbine near the Hennepin Island sawmills, thousands of feet downstream. Massive towers kept the cable above the river., East channel of Mississippi, 1885 Minnesota Historical Society, Disappearing Water, You are standing in what was once the east channel of the Mississippi. This 1860 photograph shows water flowing beneath the bridge near Third Avenue Southeast; the primitive turbines in the first sawmills at the tip of the island, visible in the background, did not alter the channel's course. When the hydroelectric plant was built, though, vertical shafts were dug to drop the water to turbines below, increasing power by increasing the water's drop. The spent water exited far downstream, turning the channel into dry land. A log flume that ran between the power plant and the riverbank has also disappeared. Water rushed through the flume, removing debris and logs that did not belong to the sawmill operators from the millpond. The limestone walls on the riverbank behind you were the intake for a canal under Main Street that powered turbines in the Phoenix and Pillsbury "A" Mills. The intake was sealed off in the 1950s., Photo by Benjamin F. Upton, Minnesota Historical Society