Formerly known as the Oneida Street Power Plant, this plant served from 1918 to 1920 as the pilot plant in the United States for the development and use of finely pulverized coal firing in the boilers of steam-electric power plants. The results of the Oneida experiences were major changes in boiler design and lower costs of power generation.
Following the early years of central station electric development, experiments at Onieda Street resolved persisting inefficiencies at a time when coal was increasingly expensive and of poorer quality.
ASME
Term Image
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Image Credit: Image source:1980
Wisconsin Historical SocietyImage Caption: East Wells Onieda Street Power PlantEra_date_from: 1918
Clyde's mill is a rare survivor of a once-commonplace seasonal rural industry. Until recently a cider mill could be found in every community where apples were grown. In the fall, mills converted the fruit of the orchard into drink just as the grist mill converted the grain into flour.
Although cider was produced on individual farms for private use, the centrally located mill became popular for farmers who would sell surplus apples to the mill and bring back the juice to ferment into hard cider. In 1881 Benjamin Clyde began pressing his apples at local mills and soon rented his own press.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Erica Peterson (CC BY 2.0)Image Caption: The steam-powered cider press of BF Clyde's Cider Mill in action.Era_date_from: 1898
1994
Fossil Creek meanders ten miles to the Verde River, dropping some 1,600 feet during its course and, at the turn of the century, enticed miners in the copper-rich Irving area to use a new technology -- hydroelectric power. A seven-mile series of flumes brings the water from a dam below Fossil Spring to the Irving Plant and then to Stehr Lake.
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Image Credit: Original Image: Public Domain (National Park Service)Image Caption: Childs-Irving Hydroelectric ProjectEra_date_from: 1909
1976
The Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Railroad was the first railroad to link Chicago and the Mississippi River, in the 1850s. This forty-stall roundhouse, large even for its time, became a major center for railroad activity for the CB&Q. It served as a repair and construction facility from which more locomotives and cars than any other CB&Q installation were built. Steam engines, passenger cars, freight cars, precision parts, tools, and machines were designed and built, beginning about 1858.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/EarlRShumaker (CC BY 2.0)Image Caption: Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad RoundhouseEra_date_from: 1850s
1988
At the site of the first water pumping station providing water and sewage systems to the City of Erie in 1868, the Chestnut Street Pumping Station houses one of the largest steam engines, which pumped 20 million gallons a day. The triple-expansion steam reciprocating engine, which pumped water from the filter plant to the city reservoir, was typical of those used in municipal water pumping stations throughout the country during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
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Image Caption: Chestnut Street Pumping EngineEra_date_from: 1913
1981
As one of the large strikes in the Lake Superior geological district, the Chapin Mine was located under a cedar swamp and unminable until it was drained by one of the largest pumping engines of the 1880s. Miners at the Chapin Mine, which began producing ore in 1880, soon tried to sink a deep shaft through 90 feet of quicksand, using enormous pumps driven by compressed air. The sand was frozen using two of the largest refrigeration compressors built, and a sectional cast-iron circular shell lined the D shaft. Mining continued for ten years using conventional pumps to dewater the lower levels.
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Image Credit: Public Domain; Produced prior to 1/1/1923Image Caption: Chapin Mine PumpEra_date_from: 1893
1987
This is the earliest known survivor of an integrated cotton ginning system widely used to process cotton from wagon to bale in a continuous operation. The gin machinery was designed and built in 1914 by the Lummus Cotton Gin Company. It can process seven bales per hour. Five gin stands, stick machine, burr machine, separators, cleaners, press pump, and pneumatic conveying fans are driven by a 125-hp Bessemer oil engine. This gin ran commercially until 1974 and was restored to operating condition in 1993.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/John W. Schulze (CC BY 2.0)Image Caption: Burton Farmers Gin MillEra_date_from: 1914
1994
During the post-Civil War era, efforts to cultivate the land for higher crop yields resulted in the digging of thousands of miles of ditches to improve land drainage. Accurately graded ditches were needed for open drainage, pipeline trenches and placement of underground agricultural drainage tile. Teams of skilled workers laid out the direction and gradient of a ditch and dug it out with pick and shovel. The Black Swamp area, where Lake Erie drains into northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan, was the center of much of the U.S. ditching activity.
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Image Caption: Buckeye Steam Traction DitcherEra_date_from: 1902
1988
This collection recognizes the inventive talents of John Moses Browning (1855-1926), a prolific and significant designer of sporting and military firearms, whose designs were known for simplicity, accuracy, and reliability. He held more than 128 patents covering 80 distinct firearms produced by Winchester, Remington, Colt, Fabrique Nationale, Savage, and General Motors (during wartime), among others.
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Image Credit: Public Domain; Produced prior to 1/1/1923Image Caption: Browning Firearms CollectionEra_date_from: 1878
1989
Founded by Eleuthère Irénéé du Pont (1771-1834), the Brandywine River Mills became the largest maker of explosive black powder in the United States. That success resulted directly from the firm's pioneering use of gunpowder processing machinery driven by water wheels and water turbines.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Harvey Barrison (CC BY-SA 2.0)Image Caption: On of the waterwheels belonging to the Brandywine River Powder MillsEra_date_from: 1803
2002
Innovations
