Seattle Electric Company – Crows of Arroyos

Georgetown Steam Plant Pipes

Posted on October 25, 2015 by batgurrl

The 1906 Steam Plant was full of pipes large and small. They were made of brass, metal and painted over in different colors. They carried oil, water, steam and who knows what else.

Lets have a walk around the plant and see what we can find.

Look up and you see pipes

These brass pipes were on the side of the turbines. Oil or steam?

Up in the boiler room the pipes and valves were everywhere. When I looked between the boilers looking to the west sunshine I got this photo. The spooky factor was high in this room.

The boilers were eight on each side. Down at the southern end of the long room the light streamed in from a window high up. It gave this shot of the front of the boilers two different tones of color. Add more pipes and gauges to the picture for a good photo opportunity.

Later you will see a picture of the coiled heavy electrical cable that I was drawn to. After I took several photos of that I weaved behind that area and found this huge pipe and valve wheel.

I leave you with two more sets of pipes at the Steam Plant.

My brain exploded with more pipes

Pipes on the boiler with funnel to control flow

Want more of the Georgetown Steam Plant? Go to my master post on this subject for the other topics around this historic place.

More Georgetown Steam Plant

Georgetown Steam Plant

Seattle Steam Plant Gauges of time

Posted on October 25, 2015November 22, 2016 by batgurrl

Georgetown Steam Plant was full of gauges and control panels. Let’s talk about visual overload for my camera and me.

Similar to the Seattle Electric Company Plant Stairways post let us go around the building in order that I saw them.

At first I was fascinated by these oilers. The workmanship of the brass and glass is from a time before things were made in foreign countries.

brass and glass = machinery art

Oilers full and ready to go

This next piece of the machinery must have twirled and turned as the machine worked.

Then I turned to the big generator made by General Electric over 100 years ago. Not only do I have good shots of its inner workings but of the manufacture’s plate.

Continuous Current Generator Mfg Plate

Inner workings of Generator

Let us get down to the gauges and there was plenty of them. Some looked like they belonged on a ship and some had pipes and faucets around them. A delight to the mechanical eye.

Gauges were everywhere

Is this the bridge of a ship?

facets and gauges control the steam

Deep brass colors

Boiler gauge

In the boiler room area there was a few tools and other odd things from the century past. They were dusty and just lying around like the workers had left them decades ago. This added to the unsettling feeling that I had interrupted someone. I was fascinated by this old heater and how its coils on the outside were visually delightful.

Remember the mystery stairs photo? At the same time I came out of the boiler room and took that shot I captured the control panels on the third level. This multiple tier kind of reminded me of Alcatraz too.

Control Panels of yesterday look like today — Control Panels of yesterday looks modern

This next photo gives you a better look at the start stop dial and the wench hook that hung from the ceiling. I recently received a comment from Clyde Furd who told me that the dial may look like a clock (which is what I thought it was originally) but it really shows the electrical output of the plant when it is running. It has numbers from 0 to 25 megawatts. The hook in the upper right corner is a 50 ton crane.

Want more of the Georgetown Steam Plant? Go to my master post on this subject for the other topics around this historic place.

More Georgetown Steam Plant

Georgetown Steam Plant

Seattle Electric Company Plant Stairways

Posted on October 25, 2015 by batgurrl

The Steam Plant in Georgetown had some amazing stairway photo opportunities. The site is multiple leveled so the workers could get to all the huge machinery in the building.

The feature photo was one I captured when looking at gauges. Then I saw light from the big windows at the back of the building was illuminating the stairs and pipes.

Let us take a tour of the stairs in the building. I am going to show you them in order of my discovery. We entered the building by the back big door. Then were directed to the left to circle around into the machinery area on the main floor. The other option was to take the back stairs up to the second level. I opted for machinery first. This photo looks back toward the entrance and combines lots of visual variety.

After I wandered around the machinery I decided to take these enclosed stairs. They wind up and into an office that had old newspaper articles. Having been to Alcatraz years ago I would say this set of stairs was just as spooky. Guess I picked creepy over the back stairs that made me queasy with height phobia.

Spooky stairs to offices

Stairs like seen at Alcatraz

Speaking of those back stairs that made my fear of heights act up. Here is a shot of them from the second floor. I had a hard time overpowering my fear to get close to the rail here.

After I wandered around the boiler area that continued to sustain the creepy feeling, I came upon this set of stairs going up towards the top of the boilers. To the side were more oven type doors but they were painted red vs the black ones lower on the boilers.

Next when I moved back into the room with the turbines, I looked up behind the control panels and saw this next staircase. It seemed to be lighted from the roof and I couldn’t tell where it came from or went. Thus I named it mystery stairs.

Then the last shot I took was of the one at the back of the building. Full circle was made.

Back of the house stairs to second level

Want more of the Georgetown Steam Plant? Go to my master post on this subject for the other topics around this historic place.

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: