Tesla Experimental Station

Coordinates: 38°50′17.628″N 104°46′55.96″W / 38.83823000°N 104.7822111°W / 38.83823000; -104.7822111

A publicity photo of a participant sitting in the Colorado Springs experimental station with his "Magnifying Transmitter". The arcs are about 22 feet (7 m) long. (Tesla's notes identify this as a double exposure.)

The Tesla Experimental Station[1] was a Colorado Springs laboratory built 1899 on an empty Knob Hill site between the 1876 Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind and the Union Printers Home,[2] where Tesla conducted the research described in the Colorado Springs Notes, 1899-1900. A few papers of the times listed Tesla's lab as about 200 feet East of the Deaf and Blind School and 200 feet North of Pikes Peak Ave. This puts it on top of the hill at E. Kiowa St. and N. Foote Ave (facing West); as documented by both the Pikes Peak Library District and the Pioneer's Museum.

At this location, in 1899, Tesla, several of his assistants, and a local contractor commenced the construction of Tesla's laboratory shortly after arriving in Colorado Springs. The lab's primary purpose was to conduct experiments with high frequency electricity and other phenomena. Its secondary purpose was for research into wireless transmission of electrical power. The lab possessed the largest Tesla coil ever built, 49.25 feet (15 m) in diameter,[3] which was a preliminary version of the magnifying transmitter planned for installation in the Wardenclyffe Tower. This coil reproduced the effects of lightning and its accompanying thunder for the first time in history. On January 7, 1900, Tesla's lab here was torn down, broken up, and its contents sold to pay debts when Tesla left Colorado Springs.

References

  1. ↑ The Giles City Directory of Colorado Springs and Manitou (PDF) (almanac). The Giles Directory Company. May 1903. Retrieved 2013-11-02. Cahill F A watchman Tesla Station bds [resides] 1104 E Platte ave ... Tesla Experimental Station, 1 mile east of P O [main post office] via Pike's Peak ave
  2. ↑ Carlson, W.B. (2013). Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age. Princeton University Press. p. 266. ISBN 9781400846559. Retrieved 2015-02-26.
  3. ↑ Hull, Richard, The Tesla Coil Builder's Guide to The Colorado Springs Notes of Nikola Tesla, 21st Century Books, 1994, p. 89.


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