He would later change the world with his construction of the world’s first alternating current power plant, but when he first came to Telluride, he walked from Durango through Bridal Veil Basin with everything he owned on his back. He was 35 years old. It was 1881. Telluride was booming and housing was a problem. So, L.L. Nunn camped in a tent for months waiting for a chance to get a room to live in. Having lost almost everything he owned running a restaurant in Durango where he “gave credit too freely and fed anyone that was broke,” he took the first job he came by--shingling a roof. While working on the roof, a neighbor asked him if he could build a shed, which turned out to be his next job even though he knew very little about being a carpenter and only possessed a hammer, a saw and a square. When winter came, he started a business making doors, windows and eventually furniture. In a prophetic move, Nunn solved a major problem and utilized water in his problem solving by building Telluride’s first “bathtub”. It provided him with the ability to keep himself and his clothes clean at a very cheap price and he rented it out to miners who wanted to get clean for a weekend on the town. With the extra money from his bathtub the next summer he bought two lots and built two sheds, one which he lived in and the other he rented out.
With some room to breathe now, he took up the practice of law, an occupation which he had studied for in both Germany and at Harvard University. One of Nunn’s first clients was the owner of the Keystone placer mines, located at the falls of the San Miguel River about four miles west of town. In a short time the operation was turned over to Nunn and he rebuilt the placer mine into a very profitable venture. Using water pressure from a dam which he constructed at Society Turn along with a flume and pipe line he generated sufficient water power to hose-down the gravel beds holding gold deposits. Nunn was on his way.
In 1888, Nunn bought the controlling interest in the San Miguel Valley Bank and acquired in the transaction the largest home in town located at Columbia and Aspen. Within a year, Butch Cassidy and his gang would successfully rob the bank of almost $30,000. Nunn, who was an excellent horseman and possessed the fastest horse in town, led the posse in pursuit. Outdistancing his cohorts, he caught up with the robbers who unceremoniously captured him and took his pearl handled revolver and his horse and got away to a life of crime and some fame of their own.
First National Bank Bldg built by Nunn in 1891
The next year, he took over as manager of the Gold King Mining Company. The mine was profitable, however, the cost of providing power by coal fired boilers was costing the mine $2500 a month. Nunn, who had heard of generating electricity with water power, which he knew about from his mining experiences, thought he could generate the power electrically at a cost of $500 a month.
At the time, Thomas Edison controlled the world of electricity, but he had invested heavily in direct current power plants. The problem with direct current was that it was dangerous and it was impossible to transmit more than a few blocks before it evaporated into thin air. Alternating current was being promoted by George Westinghouse, who had bought the patent rights from Nikola Tesla who had invented the electric generators and the power motors needed for generating and running machinery. Edison was a tough customer, and went to incredible lengths to convince the public that alternating current was dangerous and would not work. The deciding battle between Edison and the Tesla/Westinghouse forces was fought in Telluride. Nunn and his students vanquished the “wizard of Menlo Park” by successfully building and operating the world’s first alternating current power plant that transmitted power successfully for a three mile distance, just southwest of Telluride at Ames. During the summer of 1891, the plant went on-line and provided continuous power to the Gold King Mine.
The world heard about Nunn's success in transmitting AC Power and directly because of Telluride, Tesla and Westinghouse were asked to demonstrate AC power at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893.
The City of Lights Demonstration in Chicago
There they vanquished Edison and J.P. Morgan's plan to wire the country with DC power and build power plants on every street corner.
Their success at the World's Fair enabled them to be awarded the rights to build the Niagara Falls power plant which powered the industrial revolution in America at a critical time. America emerged the powerhouse of the world within 25 years and it was all directly related to Nunn and Telluride that started it all.
Statue of Tesla at Entrance to Niagara Falls Park
"If it hadn't happened in Telluride, it might not have happened at all."
"It's hard to say what would have happened if what happened never happened."
That same year, Nunn started construction on a large red sandstone building located in Telluride at the corner of Colorado and Fir Street which was designed to house his First National Bank and his Telluride Power Company. James Murdock, a renowned Denver architect, in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, designed the building. The building was completed a year later.
Nunn and his brother went on to build power plants in Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Montana over the next few years and designed and built the Niagara Falls electrical generating plant and a power plant in Mexico on the Fuerte River. They also consulted on the building of power plants around the world. Their largest undertaking was building the power plant at Niagara Falls on the Canadian side of the river, known as the Ontario Power Plant. The plant was decommissioned in 1999 to make room for a gambling casino.
As part of Nunn’s power plant activities, he observed from the beginning that he would need men to run his power plants and that he would have to educate and train them in power plant construction and electrical engineering. In 1890, he built a house next to his on Columbia to accommodate his students which he called “pinheads”. Thus was born the Telluride Institute which was the forerunner of the Telluride House located at Cornell University. Telluride University was designed by Nunn and Andrew White, President of Cornell at the time, to be a college within a college, which led to the establishment of the electrical engineering department at Cornell. Nunn, also, started a two-year college for exceptionally gifted students which he called, Deep Springs. To administer his estate and the endowment, which he left for purposes of educating, and housing his students, he started the Telluride Institute (no relationship with the Zoline's) and later the Telluride Association was started as the governing body.
All of these institutions are going strong today. Nunn’s endowment was enough that more than a hundred years later; all of Nunn’s students receive full tuition, board, and books. The number of very appreciative students is approaching 8,000 these days.
http://www.tellurideassociation.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Springs_College
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telluride_Association
http://www.tellurideassociation.org/cbfront.html
http://www.niagarafrontier.com/power.html#Ontpower
