Son Builds Waterwheel to Bring Electricity to Mountain Home, 1938

“Homemade Power” by C.J. Williams in the September, 1938, issue of Carolina Co-operator

Near-sighted Blue Ridge Mountain boy brings happiness to others.

A few miles from Danville at the Pinnacles of Dan is the humble mountain home of Will Cochran, his wife, Mollie, and their son, Harlow. For 50 years the family has lived there together, but only in the past five years have they had running water and electric lights in their home.

It was five years ago that their son Harlow began to lose his sight. Forced to give up his job and the girl he had planned to marry, Harlow fixed up a small workshop at home.

Near the shed in which he was working was a small waterfall of less than six feet with a flow of around 100 gallons of water a minute. So Harlow designed a waterwheel to turn his lathe. His father constructed it for him according to his directions, and it had so much excess power that Harlow connected it by a pulley to the grindstone. Still with excess waterwheel power, Harlow thought about electricity. An old car generator and the belt off the mowing machine did the trick, and soon the Cochran household twinkled with lights.

The system has undergone considerable improvement since its first birth. The generator is now charged directly by gear arrangement and it is self-oiled by a tobacco can.

The increased voltage not only supplies a 30-watt bulb in each room of the cabin, but a home-made electric iron and electric torch as well.

All this development has only cost Harlow $13, and by charging neighbors radio batteries, he earned it all back long ago, and now makes his spending money the same way.

Harlow Cockran has not kept his skill to his own folk, though. Down “the branch” he helped his neighbor set up a generating outfit large enough to operate a cornmill and lights.

Thus when life closed many of its pleasures to him, this Blue Ridge Mountain boy has brought comfort and happiness to others, and in so doing earned it for himself.