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| ~ The Inventor of Alternating Current... Nikola Tesla ~ |
Richard Munson, author of "Tesla: Inventor of the Modern," 7 p.m. Tuesday, Cornerstone Arts Building, Colorado College, 825 N. Cascade Ave., free; 389-6607, coloradocollege.edu
You’ve probably heard of the War of 1812, but what about the War of Currents?
This was the famous battle between two of history’s more interesting and prolific inventors: Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. The latter, who inspired the name of Elon Musk’s electric vehicles, lived in these parts from 1899 to 1900. He built a lab in the Knob Hill area, at Kiowa and Foote streets, and worked there eight months. At one point, he famously blew out the city’s power grid.
“He was out there making high-voltage emission, and suddenly the sparks went dead,” said Richard Munson, author of the new Tesla biography, “Tesla: Inventor of the Modern.” He’ll speak about Tesla’s time in the Springs on Tuesday at Cornerstone Arts Center at Colorado College. The free event will include a question-and-answer session.
“He got on the phone to the El Paso Electric Co. and screamed at them for turning off the power. They screamed back at him and said, ‘You blew our fuses, you wild man.’ He had to come back into the power company and retrofit their blown-out transformers and generators before they could get more power back out to the station.”
During his experiments in his Knob Hill lab, Tesla sent electric currents into the Earth, which made horses with metal horseshoes prance and attracted butterflies. He operated under the theory that the Earth had a natural electric current, and people around the world someday could plug into the Earth for whatever electricity they needed.
Eventually, his electrical needs grew larger than he could sustain in the Springs, and he left for Long Island, N.Y., where he built an even bigger tower.
But in Colorado Springs, Munson said, “He became a local sensation. His lab was on the east side of town, and it appeared as though hell was breaking loose and fire was belching from the building. The locals were in awe of this magician who could control forces nobody had ever seen before.
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| Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower, Long Island, NY |
