Belle Isle Turbine Re-designated as an ASME Landmark

(From left) Sandra Kolvick, chair of the ASME Greenville Section; John Blanton, the ASME Greenville Section's History and Heritage chair, John Lammas, vice president of Power Gen Engineering at GE Power and Water. Photos by Wil Haywood, ASME Public Information.

The Belle Isle Turbine — the first gas turbine to be used for electric utility power generation in the United States — was re-designated as an ASME Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in a ceremony held at the GE Power and Water headquarters on April 26 in Greenville, S.C.

The Belle Isle Turbine, which General Electric delivered to the Belle Isle Station of the Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. in Oklahoma City in July 1949, was originally named as an ASME landmark in a ceremony in Schenectady, N.Y., in 1984. John Blanton, the ASME Greenville Section’s History and Heritage (H&H) chair, nominated the turbine for re-designation after it was relocated to its new home in South Carolina in 2013.

The turbine’s ASME landmark status recognizes the machinery’s pioneering significance to the creation of a reliable power generation industry in the United States. According to its landmark plaque, the turbine, which GE began developing prior to World War II, “represents the transformation of the early aircraft gas turbine in which the engines seldom ran more than 10 hours at a stretch, into a life-long prime mover.”

The Belle Isle Turbine, which was re-designated as an ASME landmark last month, was the first gas turbine to be used for electric utility power generation in the United States.

In addition to Blanton, attendees at the ceremony in Greenville included Sandra Kolvick, chair of the ASME Greenville Section; John Lammas, vice president of Power Gen Engineering at GE Power and Water; members of the Greenville section and personnel from the GE Power and Water plant.