The cooling tower foundation was a compression ring footer over 900 feet in circumference, bedded without any piling. The next step was to pour 40 feet high columns, in a
The construction schedule was set to pour a two-foot high ring all the way around the tower each day. A walkway platform was set up completely around the tower. A tower crane set in the center lifted up the forms and reinforcing steel to the platform, and carpenters and iron workers started to set the material in place.
When the ring was about half way around, the concrete gang would start the pouring. The job then shut down until the next day when the forms were moved and the the entire process was repeated. By the second tower, it was decided to use 3-foot forms instead of two, which moved the tower upwards 50% faster.
At about this time, we were the low bidder on the Keystone Dam which flooded the valley above Gastown, and which was built to insure a constant flow of intake water for the power plant. Ragnar Benson awarded the earth work to a subcontractor, and contructed all the concrete structures ourselves, including the high overfow spillway and the concrete ourflow tunnels.
Later in our work at Keystone, we also received contracts and built the railroad car coal dumper at the site and a railroad bridge over Crooked Creek. It took almost three years to complete these projects. The jobsite was only five minutes away, so I would usually drive home for lunch.
Our contract at the new Keystone Power Plant was to build four natural draft hyperbolic (hourglass shaped) cooling towers, 300 feet in diameter at the base and 320 feet high. No one in our company had probably even heard of this type of cooling tower at that time. They originated in Europe and Ragnar Benson had licensed the technology from a company in Belguim called Hamon, so it was a learning process for all of us.
shape all around this ring with a continuous 2-ft. x 2-ft. concrete beam tying all the legs together. At this level, the solid concrete wall to the top was started.