If the word “Tesla” brings to your mind an elegant, all-electric, zero-emissions sports car, that’s great—you’ve been paying attention to technological advances in environmentally friendly transportation. Take a test drive from Boulder’s show room and then consider “saving” $7,500 with a federal tax credit, plus a similar amount from the state; it’s the government’s way of encouraging us to drive green. But that’s a story for another time.

Now, if the word “Tesla” brings to mind the late 19th century “Battle of the Currents,” you’re in the right place, and you probably already know you’re a technology nerd. This “battle” was between direct current (DC) for the distribution of power, championed by Thomas Edison, and alternating current (AC), with Nikola Tesla as the major developer and proponent. Think back to VHS and Beta in the 1980s; that’s what AC and DC were like in the 1880s. Edison was well-known, well-connected, and stubborn—but ultimately unsuccessful. AC was the superior technology and is now used all over the world.

And, if you know that Tesla did much of his product development in Colorado, well, then, you’re a serious geek, and it’s time for you to take a trip to Telluride. I’m not going to tell you where to stay or what to eat. The town is full of so many great choices, it would be difficult to choose wrong. Instead, let’s talk about what to see there, from a technology perspective: the world’s first AC generating and transmission system, gondolas old and new, a working hydro station set above Colorado’s tallest waterfall, and a museum that lauds it all.

First, the AC tale. Telluride spent the first half of its 138 years as just another mining town amongst many in the San Juan mountains. One difference: Lucien L. Nunn lived in Telluride. A far-seeing man, he was well aware of the AC/DC battle. He knew that Edison—a national hero—claimed that AC was dangerous, and that therefore few were interested in the “alternative.” Tesla, a Croatian-born engineer who had worked for Edison at one point, countered that argument by allowing his body to be a conduit for AC, proving it was perfectly safe—at least, for people who are well-grounded.

(For those of you who slept through freshman physics, “direct current” goes in one direction only, and is hard to “step down” from one voltage to another. “Alternating current” reverses directions regularly, can be stepped up or down with transformers, and thus travels better over long distances. )

Tesla needed a better proving ground than his body for his AC, so he sought a real-world application. Nunn saw the light, as it were, and persuaded the owners of the Gold King Mine to replace the expensive energy generation of the day—steam, powered by coal carried by mule—with an experimental hydroelectric plant, with the electricity to be transmitted over copper wires.

Although Tesla, with his headquarters at that point outside Colorado Springs, never set foot in Telluride, his equipment was hauled up (by mules, of course) to a creek not far from the Gold King Mine. There, George Westinghouse (yes, that Westinghouse) set up the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant and transmitted its electricity 3.5 miles to the mine. It was, shall we say, a “transformative” experience.

The 1891 plant was an electrifying novelty for Telluride’s workaday people, who flocked to watch the construction and implementation of the new plant. “Whenever they took the Ames generator off the system, they would draw an eight-foot arc of naked electricity across the room before finally breaking the connection,” according to a Denver Post description. “It was quite a spectacle.”

L.L. Nunn soon bought up lots along Telluride’s streets so he could install streetlights—all AC, of course—again proving that AC was safe and compatible with human habitation. This Telluride technology experiment sparked a whole industry, and Edison later regretted he had stuck to DC so long.

Tesla, Nunn and the AC story are chronicled at the Telluride Historical Museum (www.telluridemuseum.org), including a model of how the original AC power transmission worked. To see the true cradle of AC, or at least the 1906 stone building that replaced the original frame structure, drive to the Ames Plant, near Ophir. Xcel Energy owns the plant, which is still producing power, so it’s not open to visitors, but an advance call to Alfred Hughes (970-247-8363) may well get you what he calls “the five cent tour of the project.” The plant is a good jumping-off point for a hike to Hope and Trout Lakes, the water sources used at Ames.

Once you’ve explored the museum and other offerings, take a power hike to Bridal Veil Falls. From town, it’s 2.6 miles to the base of these iconic falls, and another mile to the top, where a 1907 hydroelectric plant continues to generate juice. Eric Jacobson has a 99-year lease to operate the Bridal Veil Power Station, and has done a magnificent job of restoring both the plant and the residence using original materials wherever possible. The plant uses water from Blue Lake; with a significant elevation drop in the penstock (intake structure), it reaches the plant at a pressure of 810 psi. That generates 500 kw of electricity that’s then fed into the everyday power grid. To see the interior, check with the museum; they’ll often arrange a tour in the late summer. Or hike up and if you happen to be lucky, you might catch Jacobson out and about. (If you do run into him, please be respectful of his privacy and his time; the man does have a job to do!)

What else? The San Juans were marked by flyways for some of the nation’s first aerial trams. These weren’t for skiers; that sport hadn’t been imported yet. They were strictly utilitarian transportation for ore (although miners often hopped a ride, too), and were powered by gravity—ore-laden cars went down, and that propelled empty cars back up. Until then, ore went out on the backs of mules; what a great leap forward it was to fly it out instead.

The region is dotted with the remains of tram towers. Walk to the river’s edge in downtown Telluride and see the Penn Tram Tower, marked with a historic plaque. Better yet, take a hike (or a Jeep) to the Tomboy Mine outside of town. The cables and cars are long gone, but the towers are a testament to technology. There’s lots more to see there, too, by way of buildings, machinery, tailings, and historic markers.

The Telluride Historical Museum lauds yesteryear’s trams and their modern equivalent, the gondola. This glides to a ridge connecting the town of Telluride with the ski resort community, Telluride Mountain Village. And it’s inventive: it has the first-ever lightning protection devices. The gondola itself is built to get skiers from town to the slopes, but it runs year round, from 7 a.m. ‘til midnight, to service sightseers, mountain bikers, hikers, and diners. When I visited, one of my companions took this 13-minute ride five times in 36 hours just because it was so fun (and free).

The museum is just one attraction; its real mission is history, and its building – Telluride’s former hospital, built in 1896 – is historic but surprisingly tech-savvy. It promotes walking tours of the town with either a brochure, an MP3 audio presentation, or audio support delivered to your cell phone.

To round out this geeky getaway, check out the schedule of Pinhead Town Talks. Nunn not only put AC in Ames and streetlights in Telluride, he also installed AC at many mines throughout the west. To oversee these operations, he brought groups of work/study students from Cornell University. Nunn kept track of where his engineers were with pins on a map. Thus, “pinheads” became a local term for STEM types—those in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.

For local pinheads, nerds, techies and geeks, the Telluride Science Research Center and its related educational arm, the Pinhead Institute, are offering five multi-disciplinary talks on science to lay audiences on five Tuesdays in July and August (www.telluridescience.org/pinhead/2010). These give you a chance to compare data points with Telluride techies—and you don’t need to drive up in a Tesla to do it.

In addition to writing The Enlightened Tourist column for Nexus, freelance writer Wendy Underhill has written features and investigative reports on a number of diverse topics.