Nunn fathers first AC transmission generating plant in the world

 “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” 

—Albert Einstein

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” 

—Thomas Edison

Ames Power Plant near Telluride in 1905.

Nunn takes awhile to find success

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

As noted, both Thomas Edison, and Albert Einstein, are credited with the idea that it takes a lot of failure to come up with the right mix for success. But Lucien Lucius Nunn, a local example (working from Telluride and other locales in Colorado) on that principal — failed multiple times with upscale restaurants, other businesses, and educational adventures —but his hard work paid off eventually.

From the National Mining Hall of Fame & Museum:

"L. L. Nunn fathered the first application of a power plant to transmit alternating current for the generation of power.  It was the first time this feat had been achieved anyplace on earth!​

"In 1890, the Gold King Mine near Telluride, Colorado was losing money due to the cost of freighting fuel to run its generators. Cheap power was desperately needed. Nunn developed an idea of using alternating current transmitted at high voltages, then stepping it down with transformers. He investigated methods of using hydro-electric power and persuaded George Westinghouse to back the $15 million venture. Nunn immediately began building the Ames Power Plant. He and his associates worked through the harsh winter stringing wires and designing lightning arresters. Nikola Tesla personally designed the motor to be used and Westinghouse provided the generators.​"

"On opening day in 1891, surrounded by skeptics, he threw the switch. A blue arc filled the sky and power surged to the Gold King Mine three miles away where the generators ran flawlessly!​" according to the National Mining Hall of Fame.

"Those present witnessed the world’s first successful commercial transmission of alternating current power! The Gold King expenses dropped dramatically, and the mine was  soon running in the black. Low grade orebodies, previously too costly to mine, now became profitable. Nunn built many more power plants, including the one in Ontario at Niagara Falls. He was the first great hydro-electric magnate in the world and developed the first industrial training programs in the country. The hydro-electric plant at Ames—the first of its kind anywhere—stands today as a memorial to L. L. Nunn and continues to pump kilowatts into the Colorado Ute Power System.​"

Early map of Telluride Power Company transmission lines.
 

Nunn moved to Telluride, Colorado, in 1880, where he started a law practice and dealt in real estate. In the following decade. he had become involved in gold mining, journalism, and banking within the small community. His bank, the First National Bank of Telluride, was the only bank in the county at the time. In order to help his mining operations prosper, Nunn financed the world’s first A/C power plant used for industrial purposes (mining), the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant. This plant, built by George Westinghouse, became part of the Nunn’s Telluride Power Company which would later become part of Utah Power and Light. Nunn continued investing in the power industry and helped design the Ontario Power Plant in Niagara Falls, Ontario. To staff the power plants Nunn created a work study program called the Telluride Institute, headquartered near the Olmsted Power Plant, located in the Provo Canyon near Orem, Utah. Upon completion of the course the graduates were sent on to gain further education through the issuance of scholarships. Many of these students went on to study at Cornell University, where they resided at Telluride House, managed by Telluride Association, which Nunn founded.

Nunn was forced to sell his portion of Telluride Power in 1912 due to disagreements with other stockholders, which led to the closure of the Olmsted educational site and the suspension of the Telluride Institute program.

Educational endeavors and legacy:

"The Telluride Association at Cornell (and in time elsewhere) remained, and still remains, in existence. Its mission eventually expanded to encompass a variety of intellectually intense residential houses for college students, summer programs for high school students, scholarships, and other activities, all coeducational. Finally he founded Deep Springs College in 1917, a highly regarded two-year college built on the "Swinging T Ranch" in the remote Deep Springs Valley, California. The college is similar in style to the Telluride Institute, in that students must work while completing their academic requirements and are engaged in a significant measure of self-governance. The New Yorker described the style of education Nunn established at Deep Springs as "a novel form of education, a mix of Christian mysticism, imperialist elitism, Boy Scout-like abstinence, and Progressive era learning-by-doing, with an emphasis on leadership training and the formation of strong character." He financially supported American zoologist Charles Otis Whitman's work. Whitman was married to Nunn's sister Emily, herself a zoologist," according to Deep Springs College's page.

Nunn died in 1925 as a result of tuberculosis which he contracted a decade earlier. He was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California.

According to The Electric Edge of Academe: The Saga of Lucien L. Nunn and Deep Springs College, by L. Jackson Newell:

 In 1891, Nunn, working with Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, pioneered the world’s first commercial production of high-tension alternating current (AC) for long-distance transmission—something Thomas Edison deemed dangerous and irresponsible. After creating the Telluride Power Company, Nunn constructed the state-of-the-art Olmsted Power Plant in Provo Canyon and the Ontario Power Works at Niagara Falls. To support this new technology, he developed an imaginative model of industrial training that became so compelling that he ultimately abandoned his entrepreneurial career to devote his wealth and talents to experimenting with a new model of liberal education. In 1917, Nunn founded Deep Springs College in eastern California. The school remains one of the most daring, progressive, and selective institutions of higher learning in America. Newell examines how Nunn’s radical educational ideas have survived internal and external challenges for nearly a century and explores their relevance today.

The Center for Southwest Studies, at Fort Lewis College, in Durango, Colorado, had this to say about Nunn's legacy:

"It’s hard not to admire the evident generosity behind ... statements, or the sense of social obligation obvious when Nunn refers, in a January 19, 1901 letter, to “the difficulties of winter construction,” but notes that the company’s customers depend upon the power station being built: “Our failure to serve them would interrupt the employment of 4,000 men and a product of over $20,000 per day.” Even the seemingly mundane correspondence reveals a commendable sense of charity, as in the bills, telegrams, and receipts from the Keeley Institute of Chicago, where Nunn paid for the rest cures or addiction rehabilitation of at least four people.

"Nunn, then, was clearly a bighearted man.  The complication is that he was also ideally situated for self-representation, and it isn’t obvious where the line between Nunn the private altruist and Nunn the public philanthropist lies.  For not only in the correspondence, of which even the most trivial of telegrams, rate statements, bills, etc. he apparently retained, but in the contemporary media, which seemed to have a fascination with him and other important mining figures, Nunn could fairly assume that a record of his deeds and words would be kept."

"And indeed, even in the late 19^th century, Nunn must have been acutely aware of the power of the media to influence his business dealings and public reception.  Besides owning a newspaper himself, he used the forum to advance business propositions, as in a letter published in The Telluride Journal, dated June 15, 1891 and addressed “to the citizens of Telluride,” in which he advocates the construction of a local hotel.  While attempting to foster a sense of community (he includes himself in the town’s “us”), Nunn writes that “my only desire in the matter is to advance the general prosperity of the town.”  Likewise, a March 18, 1892 letter to the editor of the Journal, printed in his own newspaper, the rival Telluride Republican, declares, “No one knows better than you do the vast benefit which the work which I have done in this county has been to the entire community.  Admissions on this score have been wrung from my opponents.”  Nunn clearly understood the means and potential of manipulating public opinion.

"Reciprocally, the newspapers loved him.  The Telluride Journal declares on July 18, 1891 that “to Mr. L.L. Nunn, general manager of the Gold King Property, is due the credit for the inception and successful demonstration of this enterprise,” and refers to him on June 29, 1911 as “the founder, father, creator and since its birth, the directing genius to whose indefatigable energy, determination and resourcefulness is due the marked success achieved by the Telluride Power Company…it will be gratifying to the many old friends of Mr. Nunn in Telluride and vicinity to learn that he has the confidence and support of a two-thirds majority of the board of directors of the Telluride Power Company.

 Ames (Colo.) power plant original generator 100 H.P.

The Center notes that even gossip columns carefully tracked Nunn’s movements, while editorials from every mining district applauded the technological progress that Nunn seemed to typify.  Even aside from any possible concurrence of newspaper and business interests, Nunn was apparently lionized both in his day and ours.  That the mythology endured long after his death is apparent in a 1977 issue of Colorado Country Life, which states: “L.L. Nunn, whose picture graces our cover this month, was a Very Important Person in his day.  His contribution to the electric utility industry was a significant one…We happen to believe that the kind of courage and innovation which Nunn displayed was not untypical of his day, and hopefully of today.  Perhaps there are enough Nunn-like individuals around today, willing to endure the criticisms and the skepticism, that the answers will be found to many of our problems – including the energy crisis.” For a very long time, if still not today, Nunn was remembered the way he wanted to be remembered.  

 Dairy at Deep Springs College in 1926

"Ultimately, it may not matter what Nunn’s motivations were, or the extent to which consciousness of his own massive legacy influenced his personal dealings.  Nunn did contribute to his own public image in ways unavailable to most people.  But in his private gifts, as with his public endowments, Nunn may have been acting under the same stimulus: the desire to leave something worthwhile for the future, whether that took the form of the Telluride Association or an elevated, possibly even romanticized, view of himself.  A Ouray Herald article of June 16, 1911, titled “Nunn’s Gift Aids Education – Telluride Institute of Electrical Engineering Receives Immense Sum,” notes that “L.L. Nunn has long been known as a practical, unostentatious philanthropist.” Then, as now, the philanthropy seems to matter more than the reasons behind it."

Tomboy mine and mill in Telluride.

 Time Line of the Life of L.L. Nunn as recorded in the Western Colorado Power Company Collection, Center for Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado.

1853 Mar. 16	Medina, Ohio	Lucien Lucius born to Miriam and Charles Robert Nunn
1865	Peru, Ohio	Nunn family moves to another farm
1866	Oberlin, Ohio	Nunn meets and is profoundly influenced by revivalist preacher Charles G. Finney
1867	Oberlin, Ohio	Nunn begins studies at Cleveland Academy under Linda T. Guilford
1869	Oberlin, Ohio	In business with oldest brother Fred, including the cultivation of bees for honey
1873 fall		Travels to London with Fred
1874	Oberlin, Ohio	Fred dies
1876 fall		Travels to Germany to recuperate after financial troubles
1877 fall	Boston, Mass.	Nunn begins working in the law office of Henry W. Paine
1878 fall	Boston, Mass.	Nunn enters Harvard Law School
1879 summer	Peru, Ohio	Works at family farm
1879 fall/winter	St. Louis, Mo.	Studies extensively in public library
1880 spring	Leadville, Colo.	Nunn moves west, opens Leadville Restaurant
1880	Leadville, Colo.	Opens more upscale restaurant, The Pacific Grotto
1880 Nov.	Leadville, Colo.	Leaves town with partner Malachi Kinney after the failure of Pacific Grotto
1880	Durango, Colo.	Opens new Pacific Grotto, enters the real estate business with Kinney and Tom Hall as Hall, Nunn, and Kinney
1881 spring	Durango, Colo.	Closes businesses and walks to Telluride with Kinney
1881	Telluride, Colo.	Begins working in construction and carpentry
1881 winter	Telluride, Colo.	Contracts typhoid fever; with Kinney, builds first bathtub in Telluride
1881	Telluride, Colo.	Organizes the Ilium Gold Mining Company, builds ten-stamp mill at Ophir
1882	Telluride, Colo.	Opens law practice under the name of Nunn & Kinney, begins developing real estate
1882	Delta, Colo.	Develops homestead and begins cattle ranching
1887	Telluride, Colo.	Partnership dissolved as Kinney leaves Salt Lake City
1888	Telluride, Colo.	Nunn acquires controlling interest in San Miguel Valley Bank
1881	Ophir, Colo.	Becomes manager for the Gold King mining interests and unites business interests under the name “Office of L. L. Nunn”; San Miguel Gold Placers Company organized
1889 Sept.	Telluride, Colo.	Hires Stephen Bailey as secretary
1889 winter		Travels through England and the Eastern U.S. on legal business
1890 summer	Ames, Colo.	Electrical generator and motor received from the Westinghouse Company, installed in winter; makes Paul Nunn chief engineer of the Telluride Power Company
1890 winter	Ames, Colo.	First commercial long-distance power-transmission plant built (begins operations early 1891)
1890	Telluride, Colo.	Nunn organizes First National Bank of Telluride
1890 Nov. 20	Telluride, Colo.	San Miguel Consolidated Gold Mining Company incorporated (official date of incorporation Feb. 7, 1891), succeeds San Miguel Gold Placers Company
1890	Telluride, Colo.	Rio Grande Southern Railroad built, Nunn sells construction company
1891 Feb. 13	Boston, Mass.	First meeting of the Board of Directors of SMCGC; Nunn elected General Manager
1891	Bear Creek Mill, Colo.	Instruction begins first student class of Telluride Institute
1891 June	Ames, Colo.	Plant begins regular functioning work
1891 Oct. 6	Telluride, Colo.	Nunn acts as chairman for first annual meeting of the SMCGCS
1891 Oct. 6	Telluride, Colo.	Original power transmission line extended from Ames to Telluride
1892 spring	Telluride, Colo.	Nunn builds 120-stamp mill on Bear Creek
1892 summer		Travels to Europe with Stephen Bailey
1895	Ames, Colo.	Experimental line, Ames Station to Gold King Mill to test higher-transmission line voltages
1895	Logan, Utah	Buys the Hercules electric plant on the Logan River
1896 Feb. 15		San Miguel Consolidated Gold Mining Company becomes the Telluride Power Transmission Company
1896		Transmission system is converted to three-phase, induction motors replacing synchronous ones
1897 Feb. 11	Denver, Colo.	P.N.’s daughter dies of measles and other complications
1897 Aug. 8	Telluride?	P.N. and wife move to Provo
1897	Provo, Utah	Builds Nunn’s Station, first power installation in the Provo Canyon
1898 Feb.	Provo, Utah	Olmsted Power Station begins operations
1900	Norris, Mont.	Nunn builds plant on Madison River
1900	Ophir, Colo.	New powerhouse constructed at Ilium
1902	Ontario, Canada	With Paul, builds hydroelectric station at Niagara Falls for Ontario Power Company
1903	Logan, Utah	Logan Power Company absorbed into the Telluride Power Company
1903	Nellie Mine, Colo.	Miners’ strike
1904	Provo, Utah	Telluride Institute is expanded to the Olmsted Station
1907	Grace, Idaho	Builds power plant, part of the Bear River system
1907	Chihuahua, Mexico	Builds plant on the Fuerte River for the Lluvia de Oro Mining Company
1909 Feb.	Granville, Michigan	Niece Florence dies
1909	Ithaca, N.Y.	Telluride House built at Cornell (opens in 1910)
1909	Ophir, Colo.	Ilium plant destroyed in flood
1909	Telluride, Colo.	Dam at Trout Lake bursts
1910	Ithaca, N.Y.	Builds Telluride House at Cornell University,first students in fall
1910 Sept.	Telluride, Colo.	Dam at Trout Lake completed
1910 Nov.	Chicago, Ill.	Nunn is diagnosed with tuberculosis
1911	Olmsted, Utah	Signs constitution of Telluride Association along with 87 employees of the Telluride Institute
1912 May 23	Bear Creek Mill, Colo.	Fire shuts down operations at mill
1912 summer		Telluride Power Company taken over by the Electric Bond and Share Company of New York; Telluride Association split from the power company
1913 March 12		Western Colorado Power Company organize, takes over Telluride Power Transmission Company
1916	Claremont, Virginia	Nunn attempts unsuccessfully to fund another school
1916 Sept.	Deep Springs, Calif.	Purchases property to build Deep Springs School
1919	Teague, Texas	Sells diesel plant
1923	Casper, Wyo.	Sells diesel power company
1925 April 2	Los Angeles, Calif.	Nunn dies at age 72