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History
Duke Power's Cliffside Steam Station
Background
In 1939 a great number of new people came to Cliffside to build and operate what was then a giant power generating plant only three miles southeast of town. They built a village of dozens of homes and brought their families from other Duke Power installations in the Carolinas. The infusion into the community of new people with different backgrounds and outlooks had a very positive effect on Cliffside. It broadened our base of friends and made our lives more interesting. The children and grandchildren of many of those first "Duke Power" families continue to live in and enrich our area, and many of our citizens continue to work at the plant. And now a second wave of new people is going to arrive, as Duke greatly enlarges its Cliffside facility.
Our thanks Jim Cauble for creating a map and a residents list of Duke Village, and to William Wallace and Marty Beam, both Duke employees, and Anita Price Davis, for contributing a series of photos taken over the years at the steam station.
Few of us have ever known anything about that complex operation “over there,” so we've scanned an old trade magazine article from 1940 that describes in great detail the workings of the original plant. After reading this, some of you may decide to build your own power station. We also thank Joe McHugh, a retired Duke employee, for providing a roster of the men who manned the station on the very first day of operation.
Footnote: In the '30s, Duke's decision on which side of the main Broad River to build their plant was an important one for Cliffside's growth and economic future. They opted to put it on the far side, away from Cliffside. If they had put the plant on the near side (as Charles H. Haynes had urged), Cliffside Railroad would have had easier access to the plant, and might have—after greatly expanding its operation both in rolling stock and miles of track, a huge investment—secured the contract to provide the plant with coal and other materials. As it turned out, with the steam station on the far side, Cliffside couldn't, without quickly building a costly trestle, offer them much. And the Clinchfield Railroad, whose line is only seven miles away from the plant to the west—on the “right” side of the river, got the contract and has served Duke all these years. Had Mr. Haynes struck a deal and made a serious commitment then, today there might still be a Cliffside Railroad and all that that implies.
Jim Cauble's Map of the Village
Residents List
Jim Cauble thanks these contributors for their help in developing the list of Duke Village residents:
Buzz and Beth Tarleton , Paula and Ann Cargill, Bud Crow, James Daves, Dr. Rebecca Miller Dedmond, Jim Hadden, George (Buddy) Hall, Ann Hammett Hames, Lynda Cauble Harris, June White Haynes, Darrell Herndon, Nina Jones Holcombe, Betsy Forbes Jones, Eric McFalls, Helen Miller, Stan and Tince Jolley Nabow, Eldene Bishop O'Neal, Bernice Raines Padgett, Bill Parker, Betty Kirby Ruppe and John White.
For now, the list is in PDF format. Soon we'll have a more accessible version.
Click here to view the list.
Photos
The plant and village were built around 1940; the plant is still an integral part of the Duke Power system. The view is to the northeast. The town of Cliffside can be seen in the distance in the upper left.
Photo courtesy Anita Price Davis.
Plant Construction - 7/13/39. South Wall at Full Height.
Photo courtesy of Anita Price Davis.
Building the original plant in 1939. It was placed in operation on July 9, 1940.
Photo courtesy William Wallace — used with permission of Duke Power Company.
Building the houses in Duke Village.
Photo courtesy Jim Cauble.
It was a big event on May 11, 1948, when this photo was made, when Duke's turbine #3 went on line. Featured as Photo of the Month for November 2006.
Photo courtesy of William Wallace — used with permission of Duke Power Company.
From the plant parking lot - 1971.
Photo by Anita Price Davis.
This photo was the cover of an official Duke Power Co. booklet about the Cliffside Steam Station published probably sometime in the 1980s.
Trainloads of coal arrive daily. The coal is refined and cleaned before burning to make steam.
Photo courtesy of Marty Beam - used with permission of Duke Power Company.
Ever expanding, Duke built unit 5 in the early 1970s.
Photo courtesy William Wallace — used with permission of Duke Power Company.
Unit 5 completed.
Photo courtesy of Marty Beam - used with permission of Duke Power Company.
A Duke Village home being moved. The Jack Rabbit date stamp said "Nov 55".
Photos courtesy Jim Cauble
By HANNAH MILLER
(Charlotte Observer Staff Writer)Circa 1957
A steel platform with a six-room house on top is a far cry from a covered wagon, but Mrs. T. M. Bishop of near Cliffside has taken her place among the pioneers. She was the first woman of the Duke Power Plant community to have her entire home moved from its old location to a new one. A program which has been under way at the plant since last year offers members of the plant community the chance to buy their homes and have them moved to new locations.
Mr. and Mrs. Bishop had already bought a beautiful, tree-covered home site on the Spartanburg highway, before they learned they could buy their home. They had drilled a well and built a garage. The only thing they lacked was a house. When they heard they could buy the home they had been living in, they jumped at the chance.
When the business transactions were completed, the moving men took over. Mrs. Bishop packed nothing, although she did set her dishes in a box inside the house and put the television set on the floor. Her precautions were useLess, though, she found. She had left a pan of water on the cabinet when she left the house, not knowing that when she returned the house and the pan of water would be on the three-mile journey to the home site. When the house was settled on its foundation of jacks and she could get inside, she found that not one drop of water had been spilled and a dish rag was still hanging on its nail.
Attracts Audience
Moving a six-room house three miles is no everyday occurrence, and Mrs. Bishop reports that the sight of a house mounted on a steel platform and pulled by a truck drew quite an audience.
After a half-day of moving, which included maneuvering the house through an opening in the grove of trees, it was put down on its temporary foundations the last day of June in 1955. When asked what was most inconvenient about moving, Mrs. Bishop replied that the only inconvenience was having to stay out of her home for two days and nights while water pipes and electric lines were being connected.
Although moving a home is a new experience for Mrs. Bishop, she seems quite enthusiastic about it. She had never seen a house moved before, much less moved one, but she says if she had to make the choice again, she would much rather move her entire home than buy another or build one. Her spirit must he contagious, for she is now practically surrounded by other Duke Plant families who have moved their homes.
Looks Unchanged
Mrs. Bishop's home now looks as though it were built in its present location. A worried local minister even asked a neighbor if that home had been there for years, and he had never seen it nor visited its owners. The Bishops have planted grass, a corn patch, a field of alfalfa, and a thriving garden on their five acres. One advantage to the location, Mrs. Bishop says, is that she can plant as many flowers as she likes.
Mr. and Mrs. Bishop will have been associated with the Duke Power Company 33 years in January. Mr. Bishop is now the outside foreman at the plant.
The Duke Plant pioneers have successfully "cleared their brush and planted their land," and though, unlike the first pioneers, they did not build their home there, they have placed there a home any long-ago or present-day pioneer would be delighted to own.
Clipping courtesy Jim Cauble. Reprinted with permission from The Charlotte Observer. Copyright owned by The Charlotte Observer.
“If I recall correctly, this was the first house moved across the NC/SC state boundary. Like Mrs. Bishop stated in the article about her moving day, my mother cooked breakfast as usual. It was always a must in my family to have a big breakfast to start the day. She cooked for the two men from the Widenhouse Moving Company who were knocking the foundation from the house. They stayed in the house with us during the prep work for moving, and their meals were provided as well. I don't know the story behind that, but I don't believe there were hotels at that time around Cliffside.
“After we had breakfast, the electricity and water were turned off, and the house moved to its current location with my mother, my sister, and I following behind the moving house in a 1956 Mercury. A bowl with sausage drippings in it was left on the stove, and like the water in Mrs. Bishop's house, it did not move either. Electricity was hooked back up in SC, and we spent the night in a new state having just walked out of the house on the morning of May 26, 1958.”
—Greta Harmon Loeber
Copyright © 2010 The Cliffside Historical Society
