Columbus Powerhouse

Power from the Loup had been tried once before. Civil engineer H. E. Babcock first saw the river as a source of power and irrigation, and a 600-horsepower plant and canal near Genoa, begun in 1912, sent electricity to Genoa in March 1913 before money troubles shut it down within about a year. On September 15, 1932, Phil Hockenberger and Harold Kramer called 36 Columbus businessmen together and filed water rights in Lincoln that same afternoon. Loup River Public Power District, organized in June 1933, was the first public power district in Nebraska.

What the plaque says

Columbus Powerhouse The Columbus Powerhouse is one of Nebraska's largest hydroelectric generating plants and the pulse of the Loup River Public Power District hydroelectric system. The system was financed in 1933 by a $7.3 million New Deal Public Works Administration loan and grant. Built from 1934 to 1937 during the depths of the Great Depression, the Loup Canal project included a diversion structure west of Genoa, 35 miles of canal, and two hydroelectric generating plants, one at Monroe and this one at Columbus. Water from the intake structure drops more than one hundred feet through three penstocks to the powerhouse, turning three turbines and connected generators. The electric current generated is then distributed through the powerhouse substation transformer and on to the electric grid. Operators are on duty every day around the clock. Not only did construction of the Loup River Public Power District hydroelectric project create jobs during the Depression, its low-cost and reliable electricity has fueled industrial development in Columbus and the surrounding area. Five public parks located on the District's property provide recreational opportun- ities such as fishing, camping, picnicking, and hiking. Platte County Historical Society Nebraska State Historical Society, 2016 Loup River Public Power District

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Genoa U.S. Indian School Museum — 20 mi
  The surviving trades building of a federal boarding school that ran from 1884 to 1934 on the Pawnee Nation's last Nebraska land, where at least 86 children died and the cemetery is still lost.

More markers nearby

• Frank Zybach - Inventor of Center-Pivot Irrigation Machine — 1.8 mi
• Agricultural Park — 2.2 mi
• The North Brothers — 3.3 mi
• The Villasur Expedition, 1720 — 3.4 mi