Colorado River powered Austin before Seaholm plant
Interesting history from Jane Greig today:
Q: Where did Austin get its electricity prior to the Seaholm plant that was built in the early 1950s?
A: From the Colorado River.
In May 1890, Austin voters approved a bond issue to fund the construction of a dam on the Colorado River as well as “an electric power house and a delivery system for electricity.” That is the word from Carlos Cordova at Austin Energy.
Five years later, electricity was produced in the River City. The generators at the Seaholm plant (named for Walter Seaholm, city manager and city utility director) came online in 1949. The years between the dam construction and the Seaholm power plant activation were somewhat chaotic. In 1900, a flood destroyed the dam. Power was interrupted again by the flood of 1935. During the Depression and World War II, the city’s electrical generation units were fired by gas instead of lignite. Some system calm returned in 1940, the first year Austin did not experience a blackout.