Saint Marys Falls Hydropower Plant

As of 2023, the Soo hydropower plant is one of the oldest large generating stations still operating in the United States. The power canal and generator complex were begun in September 1898 and completed in June 1902, using engineering work from the first iteration of large-scale electrical generation in the late 1800s. It was from this work that the plant and utility that grew up around it acquired their historic name of Edison Sault, although Thomas Edison did not himself build the plant.[1]

From the Canadian shore in winter.

The Soo hydropower plant was built to contain 74 generators under a single roof. This was done under the constraints of the Classical style, by building an industrial structure of 1,340 feet (410 m) in length parallel to the St. Marys River and facing the structure with masonry. The sandstone facing of the power station was chiseled out of blocks pulled from the Edison Sault Power Canal, the feeder canal that chutes water to the plant.[1] President William Howard Taft visited the plant in 1911. The power canal and hydroelectric plant were together named a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1983.

Although the hydroelectric plant could generate as much as 25-30 megawatts if operating at full capacity, grid planners rate it at 18 MW.

Media related to Category:Edison Sault power plant at Wikimedia Commons

• Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) No. MI-1, "Michigan Lake Superior Power Company, Portage Street, Sault Ste. Marie, Chippewa County, MI", 141 photos, 2 color transparencies, 8 measured drawings, 237 data pages, 20 photo caption pages