(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Illinois Stories is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Hello, welcome to Illinois Stories.

I'm Mark McConnelly in Hamilton, Illinois, in front of the Ameren power house.

Folks in Keokuk and Hamilton are going be celebrating the 100th anniversary of this dam and power house this summer, and speak of the devil, one of these turbines.

Both of these turbines are also a hundred years old.

They just been recently removed and replaced by younger models.

This was called by many, the first Great Dam.

And we'll see more about it later when we come back here for a tour.

But first, into Keokuk for a little background.

Mike Foley, 100 years ago, the Mississippi River Power Company started the construction of this dam.

- No, actually 104 years ago- - Well, they finished it a hundred years ago.

- We had the big celebration, the dedication a hundred years ago and that's what we're duplicating this week.

- Okay, so it's the completion - The completion.

- of the dam.

- Yes.

- Okay, the dam runs between Hamilton on the Illinois side and Keokuk on the Iowa side.

- Yes.

- And I love your shirt because America's First Great Dam.

And you're not the only one that thinks that way.

Why do you call it that?

- Well, I did the research prior to 1910 when they started ours, and I could find only one dam that had some possibility of being great.

It was tall, it was the Buffalo Bill Dam out west, but it didn't have locks.

It didn't have hydro power to start off with.

And so it, and it was very narrow because it was in a canyon.

So this was the real first one that people said couldn't be built because it was across the Mississippi River.

- Yeah, and it was the first dam on the Mississippi.

- First dam on the Mississippi.

- And from day one, it was designed for hydroelectricity.

- Yes, that was the key point.

Electricity was brand new in the United States.

They had it on the Eastern seaboard and they had it on the West, but there was nothing in the Midwest.

- Amazingly back in 1910, or 10 when they started this, they were digging by hand.

- Yes.

- Digging an amazingly large trench by hand.

And that's what we see here.

- Well, if they started, because we had a contract with Congress to get the construction underway in five years and with two weeks left Cooper finally came up with the money.

Now Cooper was our chief engineer and he was the one that was responsible for everything.

He telegraphed back.

"I have the money, start digging."

And here you see about 10 guys digging a trench right in the middle of a corn field covered - In the middle of a cornfield!

- in snow.

- [Mark] So we say this great dam grew out of a cornfield.

and as near as I can tell that trench represents the first arch - [Mike] Mhm - and what they were trying to do here was get down to bedrock so that the dam was going to come out of here and they wanted to be right down to the bedrock.

- [Mark] Okay.

And they're dig of course, digging by hand.

I understand a total of 2,500 men worked on this project.

- Yes.

- Uh huh?

Let's move on down the way.

- This is on the Keokuk side.

- Okay.

- There were two separate divisions.

It was the same company, but two separate divisions.

On the Keokuk side they didn't start for almost a whole year later.

The first thing they did was the preparation on the shore by building bunk houses, a company store, a rail, and started stockpiling all of the lumber that was going to be used in the first part of the what they had to do was cross the canal.

So they're going to build a bridge cross canal.

- So these guys, these 2,500 guys, they lived here.

I mean, this was what they did.

And here's a good this is kind of an isolation picture of some of them.

They were from all over the world weren't they?

- [Mike] Yes.

Their Italians, Greeks, Austrians.

You can almost pick them out according to their hats or their noses.

There's a couple there's like this guy has got a - [Mark] Turanian nose.

- [Mike] Yes, exactly.

- [Mark] And they're eating fresh bread.

- Cooper had found out at the Niagara falls power plant that he built that his men felt very happy if they had fresh bread.

So the first thing he did was go to the Scoutant bakery and he made a contract for fresh bread and there you can see them on ground.

- Pretty smart guy.

- Well, yeah he was, he was a genius.

- Now, I'm not sure what's going on here.

What are they trying to build a cofferdam here?

- No, this is a bridge across the canal.

You can see one of the steam boats is caught in the ice and they're laying out all the timbers on the ice.

Then they'll bring it over and punch a hole in drop it down and just continue.

But at that time, all they had and you can see them right here.

I blew it up and just hand tools.

If they needed to go through three feet of lumber they had to, they went here and grill.

- [Mark] Oh my goodness.

- [Mike] Yeah.

- [Mark] Now you say the canal but before there was, before the dam, there was a canal that now is replaced by a lock now, I guess, right?

- Right.

Okay so we actually had a good boat traffic after the canal was built and that was finished, I think 1868.

And so the boats were able to get up and down the river, but the dream was always to have a dam so that we could generate power from it.

In the early years in the 1840s, it was just simply to drive waterwheels that would drive gristmills.

But as we got closer and closer to the 1900s and electricity was becoming the rage, that was what we wanted it for.

And so that's what we had do is get out into the river - You can see the workers here are actually walking on and working on the ice.

- [Mike] There's some awesome tools in there.

The beauty of these put photos is that you can blow them up.

And right here are three pieces of this timber that had been cut off.

And there's a handle on four sides.

So you can imagine four guys getting a hold of those handles and banging away at something probably to poke the holes in the ice, I'm guessing.

- But we're making headway here, aren't we?

- We're still on the we're on the Keokuk side.

- [Mark] Here is my question, why didn't they bring in steam shells right away?

They had these guys digging by hand for a whole year.

- Yes, it was wasn't until a year later that they got the steam shells in and I'm not quite sure it could have been because they didn't have full funding or whatever.

- It was probably money, it was probably money.

- [Mike] They brought in three.

two were used on the Iowa side, one on the Hamilton side.

And what you see here is the very first of the breaking of the rock in the powerhouse area.

They first built a coffer dam, and then when they drained the water out then they started opening.

- Now our coffer dam is, is to move the the moving river water away from where you need to work.

- Yes - Okay.

- And the the cofferdams are probably one of the most important things that were built because they didn't leak.

And that was, I guess, phenomenal for the time period.

But they were so well constructed by French Canadians.

And here you see a picture of French Canadians that worked in Keokuk in 1903 and they were working for Cooper.

This is the Niagara river.

And so then they came down here, they followed him down.

He probably invited them especially because they were experts at it.

Working over top of flowing water, and they then built the coffer dams that they were able to pump the water out.

And that's where they were going to build.

This one is the lower coffer dam.

They built a lock and the dry dock.

And up on this upper one they built a powerhouse.

- And they did that twice.

There were two of those one on each side.

- Two of those.

And then on the dam itself, they had to build cofferdam on both sides, but here you see them working.

They did everything by air power.

This is the air compressors, which are huge.

And you can see the hoses coming down.

And they probably had a special crew that all they did was run pipe for compressed air.

And they had nomadic drills.

And that was a change over that.

- That was an improvement.

- Yeah.

It took about a month and a half to get them But then everybody was happy.

They had to drive stakes then down through the timbers and the hold them in place.

And then they would fill them up with rock.

And over here, you see, after they got the cribs in place they enclosed between the cribs.

And then they came down with vertical boards.

and then the train with a dirt would come and dump dirt over the edge until it was filled cleared to the top.

- Remarkable.

- [Mike] And Cooper said that it was remarkable that they had no leaks.

- [Mark] It just fits so perfectly.

- Also that kind of matches up with with what the bedrock was that was down in that shallow water of the river.

We called it the rapids, but you really couldn't see any stones.

It was just the fact that it was so shallow.

She couldn't get boats up and down it.

- [Mark] Okay, Mike, now we're really getting somewhere because they're actually digging the trench that, that the that the dam is going to go into, right?

- [Mike] The powerhouse.

- [Mark] The powerhouse, right.

- [Mike] And now they're using it making good use of the steam shovel.

Now that they moved that rock away.

And they're going to put the draft tubes underneath 28 feet below the bottom of the river.

So, what you see here is the bottom of the river and they have to dig out 28 feet.

- [Mark] Wow.

- But, these gantries overhead we're the largest in the world, at the time.

And the genius of Cooper.

Now you got to remember Cooper had an eighth grade education and was a self-taught engineer, but he was 50 years ahead of his time on what you see in this picture.

It wasn't until I think the late 18 or 1980s that we came up with just-in-time delivery manufacturing.

Don't send me the product for me to use in my factory because I don't want to have to store it.

Don't send it until I just need it.

Okay.

Well, he had no choice here because there was no way of making piles of anything and then picking it up.

You see this pile of rock, - Yeah.

- but that's because it blew up.

They used a thousand pounds of dynamite and blew that up.

Okay.

So when the steam shovel picks up the rock puts it in a car, there's no place to store it and they're not going to dump it until they bring it over over here to the rock crusher, it goes in the rock crusher.

It gets crushed and goes up into the bin above the concrete mixing, but there's only so much room up there.

So they immediately have to start pouring concrete.

- [Mark] Yeah.

- [Mike] Well, you got to have forms ready to accept the concrete.

- [Mark] Ah, and that's what the draft tube formed is here.

- That's right.

And that's why they couldn't open up a trench any bigger than the amount of concrete that they needed to pour.

- [Mark] I see.

- [Mike] And I'm telling you, that's 50 years ahead of its time.

That's just in time.

And if anything broke down, then everything else would stop right - Now that draft tube that we see there is is similar to this draft.

- Yes.

- And I wasn't familiar with the draft tube.

The draft tube is what, what is, what sucks the water out of the turbine, back into the river.

So on a turbine, which is going to do anyway - [Mike] But we want it to be able to pull itself out as efficiently as possible.

So, therefore, it doesn't back up anything on the turbine.

- And the turbine is set of top this - [Mike] On top of that.

- Okay and the river water will rush into the turbine.

- [Mike] Yes.

- And then through the draft - [Mike] Through the draft can come out on the other side.

- Now we're getting somewhere.

Now let's get over here where we can see some of these turbines, or actually I might be jumping the gun.

- Well, visitors are going to walk across the walkway, going into the powerhouse.

It's either up here or you see it over here.

And when you look over the edge, you're going to see the tops of the turbines, or I'm sorry, tops of the draft tubes where the turbines would be put but the second installation was not finished.

All they did was the draft tubes.

And they also did the inlets.

You can see them for each a turbine.

- [Mark] Yeah.

Yeah.

- They finished that up, but they didn't have quite the river flow that they thought they were going to have, so they didn't finish up those 15 turbines.

- But they finally did and we can get a look at what they look like.

- Well not those 15, the first 15 here in the powerhouse they put those in.

But there were, they planned on having 30 total.

- [Mark] I see.

I see.

So it's still 15.

- Yeah.

But you'll see that as you visit the powerhouse.

- And this is this is a look at where the turbine is going to go.

The turbine is going to hang in this.

- [Mike] Yes.

It's called a scroll chamber and all the water goes in there just at the right angle to hit that turbine.

That's hanging here.

Those draft tubes you see, this is the very top of the draft tube right here.

- And then when you, when you actually have the turbine installed, it's hard to see but we can get a kind of go look at what they look like.

These are immense aren't they?

- Yeah.

When you stand this your head will be right about there.

- [Mark] Uh huh?

- [Mike] You'll be able to put somebody against it when you go over it East end of the dam.

- And now these, this is a look at an older turbine and a newer turbine.

- Yes.

This is the one that's a hundred years old and they took it out 19 or I'm sorry.

2008 was when they took this one out.

It was one of the first ones they took out, and they replaced it with these stainless steel turbans - [Mark] Are some of the turbine still original?

- [Mike] They still have four turbines that are running perfectly.

They're are a hundred years old.

And from what I've been told, they're not going to replace them for four years.

- Okay.

Come with me over here.

I want you to hold up a photo with me, which is an extraordinary piece of work.

- [Mark] This was taken by Herman an shoots and we can't figure out how he got this angle.

- [Mike] Well, yeah, he's up in the air somehow.

And he's the the Illinois side's on the right, the Keokuk sides on The left.

We're looking up river and you can see it's almost finished.

If you look at the, where the, where the dam meets - [Mike] I believe the picture was probably taken because this was the day that they declared the dam joined to the powerhouse.

- Aha.

- It wasn't done because the spillways still haven't been created you can still see the opening through the arches.

- [Mark] What a remarkable achievement.

(intense music) - Well, Larry, what we saw historically makes a lot more sense now when you stand in the structure and look over those 15 turbines, it's pretty impressive.

- [Larry] That's a very impressive plant.

You know, and some of it a lot of people talked about being a working museum here.

Our company put a lot of a lot of money on it, maintaining it but we take a lot of time and effort to bring the old and the new together at the same time.

So some of the equipment we're looking at here have the original turbines in them and some of the original bearings and so forth.

But you know, they were a 25 cycle plant when it was built.

All the generators have been converted from 25 to 60 cycle but we have a good mix of some original and some new equipment as well.

- [Mark] They wouldn't have known at the time that 25 cycle was not going to work into the future.

They just would not have known that no way they could know that.

- [Larry] Well, there was no standard for electricity in the United States at the time.

So, you know, a Hugh Cooper came from the Niagara falls area and they were doing 25 cycle out East 60 cycle out West.

So, and that got to be the standard.

- Are all 15 of these operating?

- Yes, sir.

- They are, some are new and some have been replaced.

but some of them were still original.

- That's correct.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- Now the building that we're in, everything all the house, the powerhouse, it's original too - All the powerhouse and you're looking at is original, all the concrete is original.

And you know, we take a lot of time and effort doing floor samples and so forth seeing if the plant is where it was when it was put here if it's moving and things like that.

And what we've found is even if with a lot of our diving inspections and that that concrete created below the water level is actually as good as concrete as you can put in today.

- That's, that's remarkable.

As we look back over the, back over the turbines, again.

we see something that looks down here like like their meters or, or something that's registering whether something's working or not, what do those do?

- [Larry] These, these stands that you're looking at here are the original lumbar governors.

So those are the mechanical governors.

They're not in service anymore.

They've been replaced with new digital governors, but they're are the fly ball governor system that actually controlled the speed of the units.

And they actually opened the wicked gates were first starting up.

So that was the main stand, the other stand there as they sell some older system that actually you talked to the operators upstairs in the control room.

So he would, he would take the handle and he put it to start or stop or whatever the guy upstairs would answer.

And so they would know if you're wanting to stop or start it or what you're wanting to do.

The big bulbs on top.

They have lights in them.

So, originally it took upwards of eight operators to start these units mechanically.

There's guys down on the level below us opening valves and getting a little running to the bearings.

And this guy up here would actually let the governor would opened some of the relay valves and opened the wicket gates to about 15% or so.

And that would get the water flowing through the unit.

And he would tell the guy up in the control room that the unit is ready to start He would turn the excitor on, adjust the pullage, and synchronize it to the breaker.

And then this guy, even until the guy down here, we're on line, that's going on here with open the valves, open the wicket gates and actually load the unit up.

- Can we go downstairs and see what's underneath?

- Yeah, absolutely.

(intense music) - Wow.

So, so we're another floor below where we just were standing in front of a big shaft and it's spinning right above the turbine, right?

- That's correct.

Yeah.

This is what we call our trust-bearing level and the shaft There's a 25 inch diameter shaft that extends down below where we are at here.

That's where (indistinct) It is actually turning in the water press bearing is carrying the load of all the rotating equipment and couples to the generator and then actually turning generator.

- And that's what we hear is the generator turning.

- We are standing inside the air-cooled generator.

It's generating at 13,800 volts, probably 10 megawatts of power or somewhere in that vicinity.

- This turbine 15 is absolutely unchanged from the one that was put in a hundred years ago, right?

- Yes, it has never been taken apart it's original turbine that they're running today.

- Wow.

And we're below the level of a river aren't we?

- We are 10 feet below the bottom level here.

Or 15 feet, somewhere in that vicinity.

- I feel like I'm in the middle of everything.

- We are.

(chuckles) - Okay we were just under or inside number 15 generator, right?

And right now that's below us.

And the water rushes in from the river through these gate openings like you're standing on.

- That's correct.

- And number 15 has four of these where the water rushes in.

And if I'm, if I'm wrong, tell me now.

It's coming in from right here where the current is coming straight at us from the Mississippi river, right?

- [Larry] That's correct.

The water is coming from West to East.

There's a little bit of an appearance that it's rolling, but there's archways.

So the water is coming straight towards the gate openings.

They go through the trash racks.

Both trash racks are there to keep the debris from the river out of the turbine.

It comes into the scrolls or the gate room area here and into the scroll chamber at this point.

- And it start, when you say scroll chamber, it starts to turn right below us, right?

- Yeah.

The water starts to come in and it starts to scroll down to the turbine itself.

It tightens up and actually picks up velocity.

When you open the wicked gates it is ready to turn the turbine about 35 feet, basically 35 feet - The level of that water is 30-some feet above the actual turbine, right?

- Above the tailwater area.

- So, that's what causes the speed of the water in the turbine.

- That's what gives you the power the turbine, yeah.

(intense music) - Well, Larry if you ever wondered what the Mississippi river looks like when it drops 35 feet in a second that's what we're seeing right now, right?

- That's exactly right.

So this is the excess flow that is occurring on the Mississippi.

This time of year.

We've got a lot of rain.

We run everything we can through the power plant, obviously.

If we have more water than that We run a river facility so we open these gates to pass the excess.

- Right.

And so this is the amount of force that those turbines inside your dam house or your powerhouse are getting?

- One gate is basically the equivalent to one of our units in the plant.

Passes the same amount of flow would be equivalent to the same kind of output in the neighborhood of 10 to 12,000 horsepower.

- Yeah.

10 to 12,000 horsepower.

What does that, how does that equate into like like voltage or wattage or any of that kind of stuff?

- That would equate it to approximately 10 megawatts and nine to 10 megawatts generating a 13,800 voltage is what we're running right now.

- And of course it's, water's high right now.

There are times of year when this isn't happening.

I guess.

- That is exactly right.

Typically in the summertime over half the time we cannot run all of our units.

So the water is really low.

You would see a lot more real estate than you do today.

You know, you have different different occurrences at that time but you know, that's mother nature.

- I, I guess Ameren likes it though when water's high.

I mean, you've got plenty of water to generate power.

- There's a misnomer with that.

Actually the ideal time is maybe one gate open that is when our head or the differences between the pond the field water is at its greatest.

As you can see the more gates that I have open the higher the tail water comes up, right?

So my differential just keeps decreasing.

If that keeps, decreasing we lose the capability of producing energy.

- And, so people understand the partnership between you and the core, the core insists that you allow a certain amount of water to continue to pass through here.

So if it's real low you can't generate anything, I guess, right?

- The Corps of engineers actually charges the river and we've talk to them and the river regulation department everyday in the rock hillock district.

They tell us what to do coming out of 18.

(indistinct) We've pass the same flow accordingly.

We got enough to run the unit break.

If not, we have to shut them down.

- Well, Larry, I just want to thank you.

And everybody here at the plant for making special considerations for our viewers for letting us come in.

I really appreciate it.

- Oh, my pleasure.

- Thank you.

- And if, if you were not one of the 15,000 estimated meet a number of people who got to come here over their celebration weekend, the odds are very slim that you'll ever get a chance to tour this plant again Because of security reasons, it's off limits.

With another Illinois story, between Hamilton and Keokuk, I'm Mark McConnelly.

Thanks for watching (calm music) Illinois Stories is brought to you by the corporation for public broadcasting, Illinois arts council agency, and by the support of viewers like you, thank you.

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