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Media Gallery

100th Anniversary » Media Gallery

Celebrating 100 years of service

See how GRU and the City of Gainesville have grown over the years with our photo slideshow and 100th anniversary video.

Photos

Browse the images below for a historic look at GRU through the years. Click each photo once or use the arrow keys on your keyboard to advance to the next picture in the slideshow, or select a thumbnail to view the images out of sequence. Use the scroll bar to the right of each caption to see the photo descriptions in their entirety.

Downtown Gainesville
Downtown Gainesville
Manufactured gas, community water and outdoor street lamps contributed to the city’s growth in the late 1800s.
Gainesville Gas Company
Gainesville Gas Company
Gas was distributed by the Gainesville Gas Company until GRU acquired it in 1990.
Lineman in the 1960s or early 1970s replace a mercury-vapor lamp and power pole.
Boulware, 1902
Boulware, 1902
Boulware Springs, purchased by the city in 1891, provided fire protection and clean water for the growing Gainesville community.
UF, Buckman Hall, 1910s
UF, Buckman Hall, 1910s
Clean water from Boulware Springs helped bring the University of Florida to Gainesville in 1905. Photo provided by UF.
Kelly Plant, 1914
Kelly Plant, 1914
Gainesville's first city-owned power plant, the John R. Kelly Generating Station, still operates today, thanks to additions and upgrades.
John R. Kelly
John R. Kelly
John Kelly, the namesake of the John R. Kelly Generating Station, served as director of public utilities for 20 years.
The downtown power plant opened in 1914. Additional steam units have been added throughout the years.
This photo, circa 1938, shows workers toward the end of the Depression era.
Truck Crew
Truck Crew
This picture, from the early 1950s, illustrates the absence of an essential tool in today's utility industry -- the bucket truck.
Before bucket trucks became common in the 1970s, linemen used ladders, hooks, boot spikes and harnesses to climb to the tops of power poles.
Engineers and utility officials put a new well into service during an expansion of the water treatment plant in 1957.
Distribution system water pumps and motors for water plant improvements arrive via flatbed rail car in 1957.
Workers set transformers for Unit 7, a 22,000-kilowatt Westinghouse generator which was completed in 1961.
Kelly Plant
Kelly Plant
In 1965, city officials renamed the downtown power plant the John R. Kelly Generating Station to honor the utility's longtime leader.
To encourage citizens to switch to electricity, the utility launched a "go all-electric" campaign in the 1960s, which touted the advantages of electric-powered appliances.
Employee Ann Maynard shows customers how to simplify and improve their lives with an electric oven during a “go all-electric” campaign.
Deerhaven Unit One
Deerhaven Unit One
When Deerhaven Unit 1, the 81,000-kilowatt generating station, became operational in 1972, it was Gainesville’s largest oil-fired steam unit and one of the largest municipal units in Florida.
Transmission and distribution control consoles like these were used to monitor power on the City's system in 1973.
Deerhaven Units 1 & 2 Rendering
Deerhaven Units 1 & 2 Rendering
Deerhaven Unit 2, a coal-burning unit which opened in 1981, was originally envisioned as an oil- and gas-fired boiler.
GRU had only a few computers in the late 1970s, which were used primarily for systems control and business solutions.
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Video

Learn about GRU's history and evolution over the past 100 years, and see what we're doing today to better serve our customers.