Contributor: Florian Laper Source: Family Album

Construction of Jesse Laper's Water Wheel, ca. 1925

Between 1924 and 1925, Jesse Laper constructed a water wheel downstream from the Fairwater mill pond to generate electricity for the Laper Electric Company. The largest overshot water wheel ever constructed in the United States, the wheel measured fifty feet in diameter and weighed nearly thirty tons.

Pictured above is the superstructure for the building that housed the wheel. The concrete platforms in the foreground supported the gearing subsystem that was transitional between the wheel and the generator. The wheel itself was hot-riveted together in place after the photo was taken. Shown below is a section of the pipe that fed water from the end of the head race for the original flour mill to the water wheel, one-half mile distant. The pipe measured three feet in diameter and was constructed of wooden slats held together with metal bands. In the background, on the site of the flour mill, is the Laper Electric Company building, in which steam power produced by the Badger Hemp Company was used as another source of power to generate electricity for the area.

Shown below, on the left, is the wheel's concrete pit as it appeared during construction. On the right, nearing the end of construction, is a view of the pipe that carried water to the top of the wheel. Standing in the foreground on the back of a truck is six-year-old Florian Laper.

Although the wheel has not been used in more than half a century, it is still standing. As the 1998 photos below document, however, the years have not been kind to the building that houses the wheel and the wooden supports for the secondary gearing system. The spokes of the water wheel are visible at the far right in the second picture. The gear wheels shown are those visible in the top photograph on the page.