Follow the Water: Part 1 - Intake and Tunnel

Follow the Water: Part 1 - Intake and Tunnel. The Anatomy of the Pillsbury Waterpower System. , 1882 , Tunnel finished; 2 Victor turbines power the Pillsbury A Mill. Low water levels soon raise concerns about the reliability of waterpower, 1884 , Steam engine installed to supplement waterpower, a move towards less dependence on the Mississippi, 1893 , Steam plant added at 2nd Street and 3rd Avenue SE, 1901 , Downstream Victor turbine replaced with larger, more powerful Samson twin-turbine unit, 1903 , New Main Street steam plant built, followed by a larger steam plant in 1910, further reducing reliance on waterpower, 1955 , Mill stops using waterpower; intake sealed, 1960s , Main Street steam plant demolished, 1992 , Turbines removed, 2003 , Mill produces flour for the last time, 2015 , Pillsbury complex reopens as housing; the waterpower system is reactivated to provide electricity for residents,

Originally, there was a large gatehouse above the intake that housed the hoists for the gates that controlled the flow of water into the tunnel

, Riverfront, 1926 Minnesota Historical Society, To your right is the "intake" for the Pillsbury A Mill waterpower system. A gate controls the flow of water through the intake and into a block-long headrace tunnel that runs beneath Main Street to the basement of the stone mill. There, the water falls 50 feet, spinning a turbine that once drove machinery in the mill, and now provides electricity to apartments in the repurposed complex. Water reenters the Mississippi through tailraces downstream., When the system was developed in the early 1880s, the Saint Anthony Falls Water Power Company needed a permit from the Minneapolis City Council to tear up Main Street and put the tunnel beneath it. The city required that the tunnel "be covered by an arch of masonry of such material as to be permanent, and such strength as to support the travel and all use of roadway above said canal." The builders complied, the tunnel remains in excellent condition and has supported Main Street since the project was completed., Detail from Map of Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1885 Minneapolis Public Library, Special Collections, Local newspapers reported on the waterpower system's development. The Minneapolis Tribune described the "small army" of workers at the chilly construction site in February 1881: "Over 100 men and teams are digging a great ditch which is to be laid up with masonry and arched over when completed." By March, "the canal is already 25 feet deep, leaving only about 7 feet more to be dug, but this last 7 feet is an obdurate rock [that] has to be blasted out." There were "reports that men were daily injured by dynamite explosions." On July 1, the Northwestern Miller announced that "water [has been] let into the East Side canal, [and] a portion of machinery…was put in motion this week for the first time.", Daniel Life, photographer, 2014