David Dahle's photos

An incredible sunset I saw not long ago... For those looking for me - find me over on Flickr.

The 'Rosefield' 23.9kV / 7200V substation in the sunset of its life. It was replaced by a pole-mounted stepdown in 2021.

Nuts! The Rosefield 7200V delta sub is no more.

Dunno if anyone still visits this stream, but here's a pic of the Weber Ave. substation site as it is now.

And it looks like the overhead portion of the Flandreau municipal system is dead too.

And it looks like Otter Tail gave the Colman sub an overhaul too. Today's little drive may as well have been called the Graveyard tour!

A replacement transposition structure on the Lennox to Centerville line - one of the very last 69kV lines on the system with transpositions. The transpositions are among the very last poles on the line that still have crossarms, as almost all of the poles have been retrofitted with large armless posts like the other two. This line is old enough that the company is thinking about an eventual rebuild, and has already replaced the first segment out of Lennox.

An older REA line leaving the downtown area.

I was very pleasantly surprised to see this old 7-up sign still in the air, although likely badly faded.

A one-by-one regulator setup on one of Alliant's rural lines in SW Iowa.

An old heavy transformer bank apparently abandoned in place in favor of the newer transformer up above.

Two sets of lines weaving around each other as the 41.6kV line heads to a nearby substation.

Interesting marking I found on the sidewalk one day when getting pictures of a few old buildings in one town.

A bunch of Canada geese gathered by one of the water hazards at the Mohall Country Club. North Central Electric Coop line in the back.

I'm still here, but 'the year that wasn't' has given me almost no opportunity to get many new pictures. On to the building in the picture... Before the mid-1950s, this little building was the main office for Otter Tail Power, along with one other building nearby. The monogram can be seen on the doorway, along with a generator, a wye-connected transformer symbol, and a water wheel on the cornice up above. I'm not sure if the names up above are of industry pioneers or local citizens (Wm. Stanley was the one who came up with the general concept of the present AC transmission / distribution system, but Tesla improved on it with the concept of 3-phase power). By the 1950s, not only was the office building overcrowded, the city was mulling transferring the municipal electric utility off Otter Tail's system to WAPA's. If that happened, the company would be in an illogical position of being headquartered in a town they didn't even serve, so they put out feelers to nearby retail communities, all of whom began clamoring for the chance of the office (and jobs) coming to town. At the same time, the company made an offer to the city of Fergus Falls to purchase the municipal system (one of the company's last system purchases), saying if the offer was accepted and they got a franchise, the company would erect a brand new general office building. The issue of the sale and franchise went on the local ballot in the fall of 1953, both measures passed easily, and the present-day main office stands about a block southeast of this location.

The line to Great Bend (in the back) is fairly nondescript, but the original line along this alignment was THE first electric utility line in North Dakota to have a 'Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity' issued once the North Dakota Board of Railroad Commissioners (predecessor to the present Public Service Commission) gained authority over all the electric utilities in the state. The original likely got rebuilt during either the 1920s expansion phase or during the push to modernize the system in the 1950s.

Original picture: www.ipernity.com/doc/ndlinegeek/18862819 Seems the distribution has recently been upgraded from 7200V CGD as the branch heading south is new. It was a bummer to see the KPFs gone and the sub upgraded to full 3-phase. At least there's another nearly identical one at Selz (and that sub is wood). The splices on the 115kV pole carrying the distribution is where the original 41.6kV/7200V CGD sub stood.

A couple interesting things - the old black Allis-Chalmers regulator, the control box cable wound around the pole, and the use of regular cutouts instead of a bypass switch.