But unlike the citys many residents, Tesla was not looking for a cure.
Tesla believed that electricity could be transmitted across vast distances through the atmosphere without using wires.
Tesla found Colorado Springss location at six thousand feet favorable for his research.
The land was free and sparsely populated which gave him privacy.
The photograph was actually a double exposure.
In reality, nobody could be that close to the transmitter without getting fried.
This tower was surmounted by a 142-foot metal mast.
At the top of the metal pole balanced a large copper ball.
Hand-written signs hung at the entrance warning any curious onlookers Keep Out.
The ominous signs were not a ruse to deter unwanted visitors, although it did keep nosey people away.
The laboratory posed genuine risk to anyone who ventured too close.
Tesla peeks out the door of the Colorado Springs Laboratory.
Early summer, 1899.
View of the interior showing the oscillator frame with several coils grouped inside.
You see, that was about fifteen hundred, perhaps two thousand square feet of streamer surface.
For handling the heavy currents, I had a special switch.
There was a crescendo of vicious snaps above.
The noises became machine-gun staccato, then roared to artillery intensity.
Ghostly sparks danced a macabre routine all over the laboratory.
There was a smell of sulfur that might be coming from hell itself.
A weird blue light spread all over the room.
The heavens reverberated with a terrific thunder that could be heard 15 miles over the ridge to Cripple Creek.
Moments later, the terrifying force suddenly fell silent, and the entire Colorado Springs was engulfed in darkness.
Tesla had inadvertently destroyed the power companys dynamo.
He pulled so many amperes from the electric generator that it went up in flames.
As Tesla cranked the power up, he began to notice some very unusual phenomenon.
A person walking near the building would notice sparks forming between his feet and the ground.
Sometimes sparks formed between grains of sand.
Small fires would start spontaneously inside his lab.
Tesla later described his narrow escape:
The nitrous acid was so strong I could hardly breathe.
When I came to the narrow space they closed on my back.
I got away and barely managed to fire up the switch when the building began to burn.
I grabbed a fire extinguisher and succeeded in smothering the fire.
Then I had enough, I was all in.
But now I can operate a plant without any fear of its destruction by fire.
Once during an experiment, some horses in a nearby stable received shocks through their hoofs and bolted away.
Sometimes butterflies got disoriented and whirled around the laboratory building.
Another promotional photograph, and another double exposure fake.
Several hundred feet from the high frequency oscillator, all incandescent lamps glowed by sheer wireless power.
Tesla stayed in Colorado Springs for nine months, conducting experiments.
Some people believe that Tesla may have heard Marconi’s wireless telegraphy demonstrations in Europe.
Tesla left Colorado Springs in January 1900 with unpaid electricity bills for which he was sued.
Four years later, his laboratory was torn down and auctioned off.
3D model of Nikola Teslas Experimental Laboratory by Vladimir Jaksic, Marko Novakovic, Milos Novakovic, Nikola Stojanovic.
