♪ ♪ [industrial machines running] - In the late 1800s, powerful new technologies transformed American life, launching a period of growth and change called the Gilded Age.

In New York, inventor Thomas Edison vowed to light up the city with his new light bulb using coal-powered steam electrical generators.

As the project began, word of the effort reached the Appleton paper baron Henry Rogers.

In the spring of 1882, [fish pulling on line] Rogers went on a fishing trip with his friend H.E.

Jacobs, who had just begun working for the Western Edison Light Company.

- Robin Rolfs: Well, as they're sitting in the boat, the fish really aren't biting all that much, but Jacob seems pretty excited about his new job, and he starts telling his story of how Mr. Edison, the inventor, was producing a giant lighting plant in Lower New York in a Financial District.

He's going to light up a whole square mile using his brand-new incandescent lamps.

Rogers is just fascinated with the story.

- Although president of the Appleton Gas Company, Rogers saw the huge potential of switching gas-lit homes and factories to electricity.

And as he thought about it, Rogers had a lightbulb moment of his own.

He wondered, "Could the water power of the Fox River be converted into electricity?"

- Robin Rolfs: He said, "When I got home that night, I couldn't think of anything else."

He says, "This idea of electricity kept going through my mind."

Roger convinces three Appleton investors that this is the opportunity of a lifetime.

If we can produce a working dynamo and generate electricity for electric lamps, we can sell this electricity to other businesses and residences.

Now, a dynamo is nothing more than a machine that can produce direct current electricity.

[coils rotating] The dynamo works on the principle of magnetism and passing coils of wire through a magnetic field.

And as long as there is motion between the wires or coils and the magnetic field, this machine will keep producing electricity.

[electricity sizzles] - Edison ran his dynamos off steam created by burning coal.

To test his water-powered idea, Rogers connected a dynamo to a water-powered pulp grinder at the Appleton Pulp and Paper Mill.

He wired the mill and the Kimberly-Clark Mill next door for electric lights.

Rogers also ran a line to his new home, still under construction.

- George Schroeder: He's building this beautiful big mansion that overlooks the river.

The house is almost done by the time he decides he's going to electrify it, and so they've gotta run wiring in places they've already installed illuminating gas, but he never turns the gas on.

- In the fall of 1882, the Dynamo was connected to the lights for a very public test.

- Joan Rolfs: The word spread around town, and a crowd came, and they were a little leery about this new-fangled electricity, but he stood out there and flicked the switch.

[lights click on] [crowd gasps] The lights went on!

Everybody said, "It's as bright as day!"

It was a miracle.

The investors were thrilled, and they really felt that the lightbulb was a means of lighting our homes and industry.

- While thrilling, the new technology had its share of problems due to fluctuating levels of power from the pulp machine.

- George Schroeder: And so, you had to constantly monitor this thing to make it work.

Henry decides he's got to put it on its own dedicated water wheel.

And so, what they do is they build a small building.

It's a little power plant just outside the paper mill, on a dedicated wheel, and that's where he's going to put his Model K dynamo and that works so much better.

You can regulate it much more closely.

It is really the first purpose-built hydroelectric plant in the world.

- With the new technology came new jobs, including one called "the governor."

- George Schroeder: He had to sit in a chair and stare at a lightbulb.

The lightbulb hung over the dynamo, and when the lightbulb got too bright, he had to close the sluice a little bit to slow down the water, and when it didn't get bright enough, he had to reverse the process to try to keep everything working properly.

There were no voltmeters.

The governor literally had to sit there all night staring at a lightbulb to make the system work.

- Electricity use spread across Appleton as new power stations were added.

The Waverly Hotel and Ormsby Hall on the Lawrence Campus were lit up by the power of the Fox River.

[trolley bell chimes] And in 1886, Appleton built a new hy droelectric railroad trolley, one of the first in the country, which further fulfilled Roger's vision of using hydropower in new ways.

The success of hy droelectric power in Appleton led the way for many communities in Wisconsin to also electrify, revolutionizing industry and ushering in a new way of life.

- George Schroeder: It's amazing!

The idea that you can take this new technology and transform the city you live in and all the surrounding countryside.

I mean, that's it.

Wow!

That's a guy who sees things that other people don't see.

♪ ♪