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Best dammed river in America
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The Catawba is considered our nation’s most improved river, meaning it has the maximum number of dams. Some joke it is “the best dammed river in America.”
Most responsible for creating those dams was the chief engineer of Duke Power Company (now Duke Energy), Brother David Nabow, Scottish Rite KCCH, Excelsior 261 and Oasis Shrine.
Bill Lee was CEO of Duke Power for nine years. His grandfather helped Buck Duke start the company in 1904. But it was David Nabow who attracted the young, Princeton-educated engineer to work there.
Business North Carolina reported, “Nabow designed many of the hydroelectric and steam plants that kept the Piedmont’s lights on during the first three-quarters of the 20th century. Without him, Lee feared Duke Power would turn into the boring bureaucracy he worried it would be when he took the job in 1955. ‘So I resigned immediately on that Monday after he died on Saturday,’ Lee recalled.”
Engineers of today still use Nabow’s tech books, journals, microfilms and artifacts. Even his trusty 20-inch slide rule is displayed in the 6,000-square-foot Nabow Museum on the 6th floor of the Energy Building on Church street between First and Stonewall.
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Produced by the public relations committee of the Grand Lodge AF&AM of Masons in North Carolina,
2921 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27628 MMVIII
Author/editor: Walter J. Klein wklein(at)carolina.rr.com
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