My great-uncle, John Bunyan, was a banker but he was also an inventor and tinkerer. He built the house I live in as a mountain cabin and designed a hydro-electric plant to provide electricity for it. Mind you, this was back in 1913.

There was a paddle wheel in the river that could be raised and lowered via a crank inside the cabin, so if the river went down and the lights dimmed, it was easy to adjust the water wheel. When I was a kid the wheel and crank were still there as a conversation piece, but we had regular electricity.

The system was written up in the September 1914 issue of Popular Mechanics. We have a copy of that issue, but the paper is crumbling and it's in such a fragile state the article can't be scanned without doing permanent damage. The other day I finally found the article scanned in by Google so now I can share it.










Taken in the 1940s:


The bridge and all were washed away in the big 1976 flood, so all we have are the memories and some photographs, and yes, the article in the Popular Mechanics.