Nikola Tesla's Boyhood Dream

Tesla’s father was an Orthodox priest. He was an extremely educated and well-read man. At home, he had a rich library in which, in addition to works of fiction, there were also books in the field of natural sciences. Reading those books, young Tesla came into first close contact with electricity, physics and other fields of science and technology. From that moment, electrical engineering fascinated the boy, became the world he lived in and the only goal he strived for in life.

One day, while reading a geography book, he came across dry information about Niagara Falls. The book described how, at that location, a massive volume of water cascades down a 51-meter-high rocky section, carrying immense power.

While reading the book, the little boy began to imagine a huge water mill, whose giant wheel would be driven by that grandiose power of water. The energy generated in this manner could be harnessed by humans. “I will go to Niagara and build a mill there!” said the little boy to his relatives. Despite the fact that they knew that Nikola was a boy with unusual intellectual abilities, the relatives smiled and waved their hands...

However, in 1891, the US government organized a commission to build a power plant at Niagara Falls. About twenty authors from six countries applied for the competition, offering as many as seventy projects. One of the participants was Tesla. His power plant project, which produced the then new alternating current, at first surprised the members of the commission, and then, to everyone’s astonishment, they accepted Tesla’s plan.

Four years later (1895), the “Adams” power station was put into operation, the first power station in the world that produced large amounts of electricity. That energy could be transmitted over long distances. The plan of the boy from Smiljan was realized. And not only that.

At first, the plant supplied energy to only one aluminum factory and later to the city of Buffalo. After the system proved effective, it was decided that all new hydropower plants in the USA would be constructed based on this then-new Tesla system. Simultaneously, it marked a significant triumph for Tesla over the previously accepted but outdated and flawed scientific understandings.