Tesla’s Colorado Springs Lab Site, Colorado

In 1899, pioneering electrical engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla received $100,000 from John Jacob Astor to develop a new lighting system, but instead used the funds to establish a high voltage and high frequency lab on a remote hillside in Colorado Springs, with a direct view of Pikes Peak, a prominent mountain he claimed he would use to transmit electrical signals to Paris. Though he operated the lab for less than a year, it was here that he had his major breakthroughs that hardened his theories about long-distance wireless energy transmission. He produced artificial lightning at the lab, with millions of volts, arcing over more than 100 feet of open space. He also energized the earth, and lit light bulbs 100 feet away or more, proving that the earth, as well as the air, could be used as a conductor. Eventually his high draws of energy destroyed the local power station, six miles away, putting an end to his experiments there. He returned to New York, and the Colorado Springs lab remained, but was eventually torn down in 1904, and its contents sold. The lab site is now a public park.