San Antonio Power Plant

In 1890 Cyrus Baldwin believed that the fall of the San Antonio River, north of Pomona, would be a good place to build a hydroelectric power generator. The Pomona Board of Trade appointed him chair of the Water Power Committee. Baldwin was not an engineer. Fortunately Almarian Decker was the man picked to engineer the plant and to find a solution to the problem of transmitting power 14 miles to Pomona. It was known that Direct Current power could not be transmitted this distance, so Decker concentrated on Alternating Current generators.

Decker was aware of Tesla's experiments with A.C and an unrelated demonstration project in Germany using oil filled drums to increase voltage. Decker's solution was to step-up the voltage to push the power the 14 miles, then step it back down to the standard voltage used more safely in homes. He did this with what we now call transformers.

Following construction delays on the San Antonio Plant, the system worked! Only a year later the distance transmission record was set at 29 miles when a line was run to San Bernardino.

But even though A.C. technology allowed greater transmission, it still was not the ideal solution for motors of the era. Single and two phase A.C. synchronous motors were inefficient and cumbersome. If electricity was to do more than light streets and homes, it had to run motors as well.