A Look Back At The Purdue Power Plant

In 2014 my friend John invited me to go inside the old Purdue power plant to photograph it before it was taken down. At the time I was so big into HDR photography that I think I was thinking more about that than just documenting the building. It was a fun time in there seeing this building shortly before it would come down. It even included a moment where I had walked up to the top of a huge staircase without thinking about how it would be coming back down. I don’t like heights so I am sure it provided some nice comedy to anyone watching me come back down. I had not thought about this photo shoot in quite a while, but while writing the first post of the day today it reminded me of my time inside of this building.

The Purdue Power Plant

This old plant was built in 1924 the same year as the Purdue Memorial Union went up on campus. It was decommissioned in 1991 and the iconic smokestack was taken down in 1992. My first time on campus was in 1995 so I would have never seen the smoke stack in person. It looks like it would have been amazing to photograph though. In 2014 the building came down to make way for the Wilmeth Active Learning Center. Below are a couple of bonus photos from my walk around this historic Purdue building.