Lighting up Durango
City Basked in the Glow of Gas and Electricity
By Jill Seyfarth
existed to fuel the gas streetlights and the gas lights in affluent neighborhoods. The coke ovens at the San Juan and New York Smelter were possible sources for the manufactured gas. The smelter, located at the base of Smelter Mountain, began manufacturing coke in 1881. By 1892 it had 28 beehive ovens. With close proximity to Durango, the San Juan and New York Smelter was a very likely source of manufactured gas.
        A few gas companies were incorporated in Durango in the very early 1900s, but none seem to have actually developed a gas manufacturing facility. These companies included the Durango Gas and Coke Company, incorporated with $100,000 in capital on May 5, 1900, and The San Juan Coke and Gas Company established in 1902.
        Manufactured gas was almost pure methane. It had about half the heating power of natural gas and required an expensive process for extraction. Consumer enthusiasm waned for the expensive coal gas with the introduction of electricity. Durangoans led the national surge from manufactured gas to electricity when entrepreneurs built an electric plant in 1887 on 7th Street, east of the railroad tracks. This first plant offered direct current (DC) service to a small but growing clientele.
        The Durango facility could generate enough electricity for street lights and light bulbs.  Electrically powered "arc" lights soon replaced the gas street lights. In the first years of electrical service, customers paid by the bulb for power that was only available after 7 p.m. and only for a few hours.
        Durango and other communities basked in the glow of DC lighting at the same time as Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse were battling for dominance of the electricity market. Westinghouse championed AC power, but Edison based his fortune on the development of small DC plants. 
        
Durango was one of the first cities in Colorado to have electricity. This view looking south from 12th Street along First Street (now Main Avenue) was taken in 1888 or early 1889 and shows electric poles and wires along the east side of the street as well as an early electric Streetlight.
        Durango streets blazed with light from the town's early days. The first streetlights were lit with "manufactured" gas that came from the abundant coal in the region. Coal was baked in "beehive" ovens to create coke, which supplied Durango's smelters. Manufactured gas is a byproduct of heated coal and was captured and used for fuel.
        Manufactured gas lit the first streetlights in the United States in Baltimore in 1815.  A precious commodity that was expensive to extract and transport, gas was only available in wealthy urbanized areas. In Colorado, gas plants were established in Denver in 1869, followed 10 years later in Leadville and Colorado Springs. Gunnison and Pueblo had plants by 1881.
        A quick review of the earliest business directories and maps in Durango did not reveal a gas plant in the city, but such a plant likely
        In the year following Nunn's triumph, the Durango Electric Company decided to install two of the new AC generators to supplement the DC service. Later that year the company announced plans for a new facility. The new plant, still standing at present day 14th Street and Camino Del Rio, was completed in 1893. Unlike Nunn's hydropower plant, this facility was fueled by coal that heated water to create steam power.
        On June 13, 1893, AC and DC machinery from the old plant was moved to the new plant during the day and service resumed without interruption. With the expanded power capacity of the new plant, Durango entrepreneurs (most of whom were board members of the electric company) formed the Durango Railway and Realty Company, purchased the horse-drawn street car and replaced the four-legged equipment with an electric trolley. The plant provided power to the street railway in Durango as well as to the lights of town. Regular street car service was sometimes interrupted at night when electricity demands exceeded the plant's capacity.
        The 1893 plant operated continuously in various capacities for more than 80 years into the 1970s.  Most of the plant's contemporaneous AC steam-powered plants in the United States were expanded or torn down to accommodate changing technologies and power demands. The Durango plant is the sole known surviving intact plant of its kind in the United States. Other older AC plants exist, but they are hydropower or direct current (DC) plants that converted to AC power. 

Jill Seyfarth is a Durango-based planning consultant who specializes in historic and archaeological resources.
Young Walter Boston, son of photographer Jacob A. Boston, sits on his burro in front of Boston's studio on the west side of whoat is now the 1100 block of Main. In the background are two of Durango's early gas lights near the board sidewalk on the east side of the street.
Westinghouse had the ultimate winning card with AC power. While AC and DC are both quite functional forms of electricity, AC has two advantages. Alternating current can be transmitted over long distances at high voltage with correspondingly low amperage using small conductors. The heavy and expensive conducting wires required to transmit DC power can not match the thinner and substantially less expensive wire used for AC transmittal. AC is also versatile, using transformers to step voltages up for mechanical power and down for domestic use.
        Lucien Lucius Nunn, manager of the Gold King Mine near Telluride, scored a decisive victory in the battle of the currents. Nunn built a small alternating current hydropower station to transmit electricity to the Gold King Mill in 1891. The Telluride connection demonstrated a successful application of AC power for industrial use and substantially lowered the cost of processing ore.
Animas Museum Photo Archives
Animas Museum Photo Archive
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