David Dahle's photos

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.

Looks like they buried part of the old 41.6kV line that fed this long since shelled-out sub. Surprising they've never bothered to replace the badly faded sign on the sub either.

The old transformer pole at Raymond still stands, along with its crossarm-mounted bank (I'd bet the three cans are GE units).

Part of a weird structure added to reroute a line coming into the area. The lines going left all end in a downguy pole.

Sorry for the lack of uploads, but this whole pandemic thing has upended everything and made overnight travel just about impossible. This was from only the third trip I made all summer, and it was mainly to check on one antique shop here that had been a good source of insulators over the years after it moved to a new, smaller building... found only one insulator worth taking home and after cleaning I found some hidden damage... Anyhow, it was interesting to see this new switch arrangement, and which was a relocation of the switch from a poorly accessible location in the back (the old switch has been shelled out and bypassed).

A house I noticed on my way back home from a day trip in June. Can't imagine why they would only build and fit out the basement.

A friend invited me to his 'milestone' birthday party which was held at his hometown (Huron) so I decided to grab my camera and head up - hadn't seen him or his wife since the pandemic began, so I was more than happy to go. First up was to check on a couple things at the Wessington Springs muni; they've put another leg of the system underground so there wasn't much new for me to photograph, but I did get a closer look at the former lighting plant - it's more a storage building for the city these days.

This section of the 34.5kV system still has a few JD blue insulators.

I swung by Lake Preston to see if anything changed since my last trip through the area a while back. Everything appeared unchanged, but the scarce (if not rare) GE Form 109 streetlight has since given way to a NEMA standard light. :-|

Another view of the pole. The reason for the yellow paint is it doubles as one of the field's foul-line poles!

The lone 3-phase load in town; serving a farmer's grain drying and storage equipment.

As part of some in-progress improvements to strengthen its northeast South Dakota system, the company added a capacitor bank, and I'd thought the entire substation would be torn out and replaced, but they only added on to the east end of the structure... they STILL have that ridiculous method of terminating the north 41.6kV circuit!

Looks like Otter Tail reclaimed all the idle transformers and retired long-idle services in this 'ghost town'. www.ipernity.com/doc/ndlinegeek/18591369 Sure would have liked to be there when that Autovalve came down!

The schoolhouse transformer pole, minus the transformer.

Hadn't noticed this before... a very nice cream-colored Locke unipart to support one of the heavily insulated 'banana' jumpers in the 12.5/2400V sub.