Westinghouse won the war of currents Edison started
A Civil War veteran patented 360 inventions and founded 61 companies across Pittsburgh industry. His compressed-air train brakes saved thousands of lives, then he bet on alternating current—and lit the entire 1893 Chicago World's Fair white city.
George Westinghouse Jr. was born in 1846 in Central Bridge, New York, into a family of German descent. He served in the Union Navy, dropped out of Union College, and received his first patent at nineteen for a rotary steam engine. By his death in 1914 he held 360 patents and had established 61 companies, many still operating.
Witnessing a train collision where brakemen could not stop in time, Westinghouse invented a compressed-air brake demonstrated in Pittsburgh in 1869. His improved design kept brakes disengaged by constant line pressure—any rupture automatically stopped the train. He founded the Westinghouse Air Brake Company and later Union Switch & Signal in 1881 for automated signaling that replaced oil lamps and manual switches.
Westinghouse entered natural gas after drilling struck gas at 1,500 feet on his Pittsburgh estate in 1884. His Philadelphia Company owned 58 wells and 184 miles of pipe by 1886, serving over 12,000 homes. In electricity he saw AC's advantage: transformers could step voltage up for long transmission and down for homes—unlike Edison's low-voltage DC limited to about a mile.
In 1886 William Stanley installed Westinghouse's first multi-voltage AC system in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Westinghouse Electric won the contract to light Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition and built the first large AC plant at Niagara Falls in 1895. Edison promoted fears that high-voltage AC was deadly—even suggesting it for New York's electric chair. Ironically, Westinghouse received the 1911 Edison Medal for developing the alternating-current system.
Source: George Westinghouse
