Windmills

The first stop on our adventure is the Dutch Windmill in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, which was built in 1902, at a cost of $ 16,000. It is 75 feet high, and 33 feet in diameter at the base, its sails have a span of 102 feet and it was capable of pumping 30,000 gallons of fresh water per hour from underground to a reservoir on Strawberry Hill. Despite being a great success for a few years (so much so that a second windmill was built), by 1913 electric pumps were introduced, so the windmills began to become obsolete. In August 1976, volunteers from the US Navy Reserve started to restore the rundown Dutch Mill. Work continued through to completion in 1981.

The second windmill, which is close by, is patiently waiting its turn to be brought back to its original glory. Huell visits both windmills and gets a first hand look at these historic bits of California's Gold. We travel to Enron Wind in Tehachapi to look at the biggest and most modern windmill we could find. Join Huell as he climbs 213 feet straight up to the top of this amazing machine. The blades are 112 feet long each, for a combined wing span (with the center hub) of 231 feet!