Mead & Hunt – Let There Be Light

The Brule facility, located on the Menominee River in Florence, Wisconsin, was one of the first major hydroelectric facilities designed during the early 1900s. One of the many Peninsular Power projects, Brule was a 9,300 hp facility that included a concrete gravity dam, tainter gate spillway, and earth dike.  The facility was designed by Mead & Seastone, and the contractor was J.R. McDonald.  Other Mead & Seastone projects built in the Menominee River Basin included the Pine River and the Sturgeon River hydroelectric facilities, and the dam and powerhouse for Henry Ford’s automobile plant in Kingsford, Michigan, constructed in 1923.

The demand for electricity across the nation easily outstripped the supply yielded by hydroelectric plants.  Steam-operating facilities and diesel plants were constructed as alternative electricity sources.  Mead & Seastone experimented in such designs with plants like the 1917 diesel plant for Iron River, Michigan, the 1922 Madison Gas and Electric Company steam power plant, and the Mississippi Valley Public Service Company steam power plant in Winona, Minnesota, in 1924.