Anyone traveling up the Yadkin River from High Rock Lake prior to 2018 will remember passing the Old Duke Power Station on the left just before the I-85 bridge. That old power station was always the first stop on our 30-mile-round-trip Yadkin River cruises from our home on High Rock Lake to Boone's Cave. We would stop our pontoon boat under the power lines there at the power station, shut the motor off and listen to the crackling sounds of electricity flowing through those power lines ... So Cool!
The history of that old power plant goes back to "The Great Drought of 1925" when James "Buck" Buchanan Duke, co-founder and President of Duke Power Company, realized that current hydroelectric plants were ineffective during droughts and decided to build a coal fired steam electric plant on the Yadkin River.
On January 1926, Duke Power Company started construction of the first large capacity coal fired steam generating plant in the Carolinas. Ten months later, on October 1926, the new plant called the "Buck Steam Station" began service delivering electricity of the surrounding areas.
Ninty-Two years later, on October 2018, the 256-megawatt "Buck Steam Station" on the Yadkin River was retired and imploded.
A new, 655-megawatt, natural gas facility, called the "Buck Combined Cycle Plant", built just behind the old plant, began operating in 2011. The new plant can generate enough electricity to power 500,000 homes much more efficiently while reducing air emissions.
Click on the image above to watch the video.
Another good read is The History of The First Yadkin River Bridge
Also here's a handy site to keep track of High Rock Lake Water Level