George Steib and Tesla
By James Donahue
It was during that magical early spring of 1959, when I was caught up by the beat generation writers and running wild with the Beaver Boys and their Dixieland music that I met George Steib.
I don’t recall how we crossed paths except that he was renting a room in a house directly across the street from Mogg Hall. But there was a crazy night of drinking in the Flamingo Bar, which we lovingly referred to as “The Bird,” and Steib sat across my table, filling my brain with his prose and wit. I decided that night that I liked this man very much.
A few days later Steib and I were sitting in the shade of the front porch where he lived, sipping Tom Collins drinks, and talking about Nicola Tesla.
Nicola Tesla was not a name I was familiar with until that moment, but George somehow seemed to know quite a bit about this amazing genius. He raved about Tesla’s inventions and how he changed our world. I remember that he said he was aware that American historians seemed to be overlooking Tesla and that he did not know of any writer who had done any extensive work on the Tesla story. He suggested that if I wanted to write an important book, I should consider a biography on Tesla’s life.
Imbibed not by the gin now, but by the idea, I found myself at the university library, digging through the file catalogue looking for any information about Tesla. Steib was right. It did not seem to exist. I found very little information there about the man. How could this have happened? If Steib was right, the man who invented alternating current, radio, the electric motor, electric lighting and a variety of other amazing patents had somehow been buried in the dust of history. It may have been my first awareness that the historical record as we know it is not to be trusted.
I never lost my interest in Tesla. We didn’t have the Internet in those days so we had to rely on whatever we could find in magazines and book stores, or get from interviews with people who knew someone who told stories.
One day, years later while working as a bureau reporter in Sanilac County Michigan for the Times Herald in Port Huron, I discovered an eccentric inventor named Vernon Trigger. Trigger, a native of Carsonville, was a prodigy of a well-known and prominent area family of bankers and business people. He had a fascination for radio as a young man and remembered building a crystal set in his bedroom to pick up radio signals from the Windsor radio station CKLW. It was one of the first broadcasting stations to open in North America.
Trigger went on to invent a ship-to-shore wireless radio system, then devoted a lifetime to relatively amazing work in not only radio but electronics, energy, atomic power and architecture. When I met him he was living in a house on the Lake Huron shoreline that was especially designed to “break every rule in the Detroit building code.” He was really opposed to codes that restricted creativity.
What was going on in the basement of Trigger’s house then was a secret laboratory, where a few inventors like Trigger were gathered to follow Tesla’s route to the wireless transmission of energy through the air to homes and businesses. It seems that Tesla believed that energy existed in everything and he wanted to supply the world with free energy. His attempts to build a transmission tower at Wardenclyffe, Long Island, were blocked by wealthy power figures like J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller who made their fortunes selling energy and energy services to the public.
After Tesla died in 1943 it is said the FBI seized his papers and patents and put them under lock and key.
Trigger, who was in his later years, claimed to have discovered Tesla’s secret. He demonstrated what he knew by having me walk across a room with my hand outstretched. I remember when I reached a certain point, I felt a strange tingling running up my arm. I looked over and Trigger was sitting there, a broad grin on his face.
He said he wanted to write a book about his discovery and let the world know what Tesla knew. He wanted to release free energy to the world. But Trigger complained that he also was being blocked at every turn.
I believed Trigger’s story when I filed my story and it was thrown back at me by my editor. The editor said he thought it was a terrible story, completely false, and he refused to print it. Trigger died without ever achieving his final goal in life.
Since those days the name of Nikola Tesla has become well known. Most people know that he was involved in electric motors, alternating current and the Tesla coil. His story is easily found all over the Internet. Unfortunately, some of the stories appear fabricated.
Now that the world is desperately trying to find alternate sources of energy because of the earth ecological disasters going on around us, the Tesla story is getting even more prominence. If he had been allowed to complete his project on Long Island the world would be a much different place than it is today.
By James Donahue
It was during that magical early spring of 1959, when I was caught up by the beat generation writers and running wild with the Beaver Boys and their Dixieland music that I met George Steib.
I don’t recall how we crossed paths except that he was renting a room in a house directly across the street from Mogg Hall. But there was a crazy night of drinking in the Flamingo Bar, which we lovingly referred to as “The Bird,” and Steib sat across my table, filling my brain with his prose and wit. I decided that night that I liked this man very much.
A few days later Steib and I were sitting in the shade of the front porch where he lived, sipping Tom Collins drinks, and talking about Nicola Tesla.
Nicola Tesla was not a name I was familiar with until that moment, but George somehow seemed to know quite a bit about this amazing genius. He raved about Tesla’s inventions and how he changed our world. I remember that he said he was aware that American historians seemed to be overlooking Tesla and that he did not know of any writer who had done any extensive work on the Tesla story. He suggested that if I wanted to write an important book, I should consider a biography on Tesla’s life.
Imbibed not by the gin now, but by the idea, I found myself at the university library, digging through the file catalogue looking for any information about Tesla. Steib was right. It did not seem to exist. I found very little information there about the man. How could this have happened? If Steib was right, the man who invented alternating current, radio, the electric motor, electric lighting and a variety of other amazing patents had somehow been buried in the dust of history. It may have been my first awareness that the historical record as we know it is not to be trusted.
I never lost my interest in Tesla. We didn’t have the Internet in those days so we had to rely on whatever we could find in magazines and book stores, or get from interviews with people who knew someone who told stories.
One day, years later while working as a bureau reporter in Sanilac County Michigan for the Times Herald in Port Huron, I discovered an eccentric inventor named Vernon Trigger. Trigger, a native of Carsonville, was a prodigy of a well-known and prominent area family of bankers and business people. He had a fascination for radio as a young man and remembered building a crystal set in his bedroom to pick up radio signals from the Windsor radio station CKLW. It was one of the first broadcasting stations to open in North America.
Trigger went on to invent a ship-to-shore wireless radio system, then devoted a lifetime to relatively amazing work in not only radio but electronics, energy, atomic power and architecture. When I met him he was living in a house on the Lake Huron shoreline that was especially designed to “break every rule in the Detroit building code.” He was really opposed to codes that restricted creativity.
What was going on in the basement of Trigger’s house then was a secret laboratory, where a few inventors like Trigger were gathered to follow Tesla’s route to the wireless transmission of energy through the air to homes and businesses. It seems that Tesla believed that energy existed in everything and he wanted to supply the world with free energy. His attempts to build a transmission tower at Wardenclyffe, Long Island, were blocked by wealthy power figures like J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller who made their fortunes selling energy and energy services to the public.
After Tesla died in 1943 it is said the FBI seized his papers and patents and put them under lock and key.
Trigger, who was in his later years, claimed to have discovered Tesla’s secret. He demonstrated what he knew by having me walk across a room with my hand outstretched. I remember when I reached a certain point, I felt a strange tingling running up my arm. I looked over and Trigger was sitting there, a broad grin on his face.
He said he wanted to write a book about his discovery and let the world know what Tesla knew. He wanted to release free energy to the world. But Trigger complained that he also was being blocked at every turn.
I believed Trigger’s story when I filed my story and it was thrown back at me by my editor. The editor said he thought it was a terrible story, completely false, and he refused to print it. Trigger died without ever achieving his final goal in life.
Since those days the name of Nikola Tesla has become well known. Most people know that he was involved in electric motors, alternating current and the Tesla coil. His story is easily found all over the Internet. Unfortunately, some of the stories appear fabricated.
Now that the world is desperately trying to find alternate sources of energy because of the earth ecological disasters going on around us, the Tesla story is getting even more prominence. If he had been allowed to complete his project on Long Island the world would be a much different place than it is today.