Colgate Powerhouse

See Lester Pelton’s first functional water wheel at the Masonic Lodge in Camptonville, built in 1878 to power his landlady’s sewing machine. We then travel to the Colgate Powerhouse near Dobbins where we climb inside the wheel-pit of one of the generating units during a shutdown for annual maintenance. There we will see an 18-foot single casting wheel, the largest Pelton-style waterwheel in the world — a fitting monument to Pelton’s invention. The icing on the cake is a visit to the 635-foot high Bullard’s Bar Dam where we look at it from the bottom up and go for a short visit inside the base of the dam.
Cost: $12 member/$17 non-members
Level: Easy