Harnessing of Niagara

Sketch of the Great Work That Has Already Been Accomplished.

LEADING INDUSTRIAL CITY

Dream of Scientists and Monied King Realized — Over 60,000 Horse Power Now Being Developed Here and the Magical Influence of the City Extending.

In the October issue of Greater Buffalo, which was prepared for the special purpose of distribution at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition at Omaha, appears the following well written and comprehensive sketch of power development at Niagara Falls:

Unquestionably the greatest industrial wonder the world has ever known was the successful “harnessing” several years ago, of America’s and the world’s mightiest and most sublime cataract — Niagara! For years it had been the dream of scientists and the monied kings of the earth, and when the force of the famous waterfall was at last, after many years of experimenting and the expenditure of many millions of dollars, converted into electrical energy to do the bidding of man, is it to be wondered at that Nikola Tesla, the great electrical genius of the age, enthusiastically exclaimed: “Niagara power will make Buffalo the greatest city in the world!”

Tesla, looking for the first time upon the great whirling dynamos in the power-house of the Niagara Falls Power Company at Niagara, saw pictured in his mind’s eye a vast city stretching from one end of the Niagara Frontier to the other; a great industrial community the like of which the world has never yet known; a splendid city of great factories, whose wheels should be driven by the silent, wonderful electrical force generated from the mighty rush of waters past the city’s doors; a city of millions of people, of untold wealth, the manufacturing and industrial center of the whole civilized world.

That was Tesla’s vision of the future Buffalo on the Niagara Frontier, and just so surely as electricity is to be the coming ruling force in the industrial world, just so surely is it Buffalo’s manifest destiny to be the great electrical and industrial city of the earth.

Niagara electric power has been in use only a few years but already it is being used to operate a large number of the greatest industrial plants in Buffalo and Niagara Falls. Over 60,000 horse-power has so far been developed at Niagara Falls.

A large number of great manufactories have been established on the Niagara Frontier during the last few years and under the magical influence of Niagara Falls power — the cheapest and best motive power in the world, have prospered and created wealth. It is a fact of recent industrial history that there is scarcely a big manufacturing plant at Niagara Falls that has not at least doubled its size and capacity in the last two or three years — and these were the years of panic and hard times!

Today there are being used in the great factories and industrial plants that have been built close to the great power-house at the Falls nearly 50,000 horse-power. In the city of Buffalo, a score of miles away, there are being delivered to the Cataract Power and Conduit Company, which is the Buffalo branch of the Niagara Falls Power Company, 10,000 horse-power. More will be ready as soon as it is needed. The first Niagara Falls power delivered in Buffalo arrived in November, 1896, and at the present time manufacturers and commercial establishments of all kinds, electric trolley lines, office buildings, etc., etc., are making preparations to abandon their steam plants and use the Falls power which is so much cheaper, cleaner and more convenient.

In less than five years, Niagara power will be in general use all over the Niagara Frontier — the site of the coming city of Greater Buffalo.

Important new plants are constantly being attracted to the present city of Buffalo and to Niagara Falls and with the great revival of business and prosperity from one end of the land to the other, hundreds of manufacturers in all parts of the United States are making inquiries as to Niagara power and many of them are getting ready to remove their plants to the Niagara Frontier, or to start new industries where they will be able to take advantage of the cheap electric power and the unparalleled transportation facilities of the Buffalo and Niagara district.

The men who have invested their millions in the Niagara Falls Power Company, the younger but the greater and the more vigorous power company at Niagara, are among the leading capitalists of this country. Their names are almost household words. Some of them are: John Jacob Astor, William K. Vanderbilt, J. Pierpont Morgan, H. McK. Twombly, D. O. Mills, Isaac N. Seligman, Morris K. Jessup and August Belmont.

The Niagara Falls Power Company was organized in 1886. The work of “harnessing Niagara” was undertaken in 1889 and up to the present time about $7,000,000 has been spent on the immense work of this company and its allied companies.

There is not space here to describe more than the few main features of this wonderful power-plant. The surface canal, a mile and a half above the Falls, is 250 feet wide, 12 feet deep and extends inward 1,700 feet. It will serve water sufficient to generate 100,000 horse-power. At its side stands the power-house, beneath which is the wheel-pit, 400 feet long and 168 feet deep. The power is generated at the bottom of the wheelpit, where the water, pouring into great steel penstocks, escapes and in escaping whirls the immense turbines at the rate of 250 revolutions a minute. From the turbines, whirling with them, the shaft, 38 inches in diameter, reaches into the power-house, where it is crowned by the revolving fields of the dynamo. Here the direct motion derived from the water is converted into electrical energy.

From the power-house the electric current is sent out to points all over the Niagara Frontier. The transmission line to Buffalo is one of the most remarkable achievements of its kind in existence. Reaching the city, the Falls electrical power is delivered to several stations in widely separated parts of the city and from these is sent out to customers in the respective districts.

The Cataract Power and Conduit Company, the company which has charge of the supplying of Niagara power in Buffalo, has spent a vast sum of money during the last year on its power stations, many miles of conduit under the streets and its other equipment.

This company is composed of a number of Buffalo’s most progressive business men, with George Urban, Jr., as its president.

The Niagara Frontier is already the greatest center of the electro-chemical manufacturing industry in the world. Many new plants of this kind have been established at Niagara Falls within the last few years and these are among the most successful industries in the world of manufacture today. Among them are the well-known Carborundum Company, which manufactures carborundum, the new abrasive. This company has been so successful that it has just doubled the capacity and size of its original plant on the American side of the river and has also established a flourishing factory across the river in Ontario, where it gets its power from the Canadian Niagara Falls Power Company, the Canadian branch of the big Power Company.

Other leading electro-chemical plants are the Union Carbide Company, manufacturers of calcium carbide; Mathieson Alkali Works, manufacturers of soda ash; the Niagara Electro-Chemical Company, manufacturers of peroxide of sodium; the Oldbury Electro-Chemical Company, manufacturers of electro-chemicals; and the newly-organized National Electrolytic Company, manufacturers of chlorate of potash.

The three greatest industries of Niagara Falls are the Niagara Falls Paper Mill; the Union Carbide Company and the Pittsburg Reduction Company. These are among the greatest manufacturing factories in this country and each uses over 7,000 horse-power from the great cataract, besides a large number of other industries, paper and flour mills, machine shops, etc., etc., all the electric railways, the local lighting companies and the city water works are supplied with power from the world’s greatest cataract.

In Buffalo, the first use of Niagara power was by the Buffalo Street Railway. The first commercial use of Niagara power was in the Great Northern grain elevator, built last year by President James J. Hill, of the Great Northern Railway. This initial use of the energy from Niagara in this elevator is notable for several reasons. Not only is the elevator one of the most immense affairs of the kind in existence, but it was the first elevator in the world to be run throughout by electric power. The Electric Grain elevator, controlled by Chicago, Buffalo and New York capitalists, was built about the same time and the electric power from the Falls was also used to run its machinery. The use of electricity in both the immense establishments has been highly successful and other grain elevators are getting ready to follow their example.

Another important commercial use of Niagara power in Buffalo is by the Union Dry Dock Company, which uses 1,000 horse-power. The first flour mill in Buffalo to put aside steam for Niagara electrical power is the Urban mills, which is now installing its electrical machinery.

Many of the largest, and most important industries in the city of Buffalo are now running their last days by steam power. The Cataract Power and Conduit Company, the distributors of Falls power in Buffalo, is about to close a large number of important contracts with concerns in the city who want to use the new power. More significant still for the prosperity of Buffalo and the continued rapid development of the Niagara Frontier as the great manufacturing and industrial center of the country, the company is continually receiving inquiries regarding power rates in Buffalo from actual or intending manufacturers in all parts of the country.