Chesley Bonestell's Lost Industrial Lithographs #9 of 32

  .

Coffer Dam and Intake Canal at Power House

Isn't this a wonderful image? It is! I hope you click on it so you can admire the fine detail.

This is a good time to pause and explain what the purpose of this enormous project was. It was 1918 and World War I, "the War to End All Wars," was ongoing. Lots and lots of ammunition was needed. And to create that ammunition, the armorers needed nitrates.

And here I will pause in the middle of the previous pause to mention that my father, whom I loved and of whom I was and am proud, was an engineer for General Electric. He worked on the space program and he worked on ICBMs--intercontinental ballistic missiles. Which is to say, he was front and center on the best and worst projects of the twentieth century.

The nitrates plant was finished just in time for the Great War to end. So it was never used for munitions. But nitrates were still needed for fertilizer. Swords were beaten down into plowshares.

So, like my father, Chesley Bonestell was front and center on the best and worst projects of the twentieth century.

 And for those who came in late . . .

In 1918, Chesley Bonestell was commissioned to create a series of lithographs chronicling the construction of the government cyanamide nitrates plant in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It would be many years before he began painting the astronomicals that made him famous, but he already had tremendous technique.

The lithographs disappeared from public view not long thereafter.

Recently, my wife, Marianne Porter, and I bought what we think is a complete set of 32 at an auction. We had electronic files made of them, which we'll be posting here, one every weekday until they're all online. Then we'll make a torrent containing the complete collection in high density form, for whomever wants them.

All the images are in public domain. You don't have to ask anybody for permission to download them and you may employ them however you wish.

 

*