Alta Lakes Ghost Town - outside Telluride, Colorado - 4x4, Jeep Trail, off-road, Easy
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- čas přidán 10. 09. 2024
- Alta Lakes is a great off-roading trail if you are in the Telluride area. If’s an easy trail suitable for any stock 4X4 vehicle.
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Alta was once a bustling mining town, and is also the location of the building where Nicola Tesla and colleagues developed the first industrial alternative current electricity. An electrical power line ran the power down the mountain to the nearby town.
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In 1948, the mine burned in a fire and with the end of the mining came the end of this town (estimated to have over 2,000 residents at one point).
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Continue up the trail and you get to Alta Lakes. Beautiful, high-elevation lakes with wonderful views of the mountain peaks.
The Charles Wells book shown in this video can be purchased here:
amzn.to/2U5Uula
Sorry, but the first power in this area was first generated in the nearby town of Ames, not in that building and not even in the town of Alta. That building was a boarding house. The Ames power plant is still there today, not far away, and used and still uses hydroelectric power to generate the AC power. There is nowhere enough water in Alta to run a generator. AC and DC power were in competition with each other in those days, between Edison and Westinghouse, and AC was touted by Tesla because it could be delivered more efficiently over longer distances. There were several mines in the vicinity of the town of Alta, which used the power generated by and delivered from Ames.
High-voltage alternating power, generated by hydro-electric motors designed by Tesla, was first used to power mines around Alta, more specifically the Gold King mine. It was the first industrial use of alternating current for anything other than light bulbs. A lawyer and banker in Telluride had a lot invested in the mine, but the overhead of using coal and wood to generate steam to power things was killing them financially, to the tune of about $2,500 a month, plus $50 a ton to deliver it. The banker, L.L. Nunn, who owned the only bank in the county in Telluride, convinced Mr. Westinghouse in Pennsylvania to help design and finance the hydro-electric plant several miles downhill in Ames, Colorado, which is still there and operating. Alternating current “travels” much more efficiently than direct current, and wires were strung up the hill to Alta and the mines near it. The power was not “made” there, and chances are Mr. Tesla never went there. Mr. Nunn, on the other hand, ended up wealthy and the technology spread rapidly, even as far as the hydro power at Niagara Falls.
Great info! Thanks!