On Sunday, Oamaru heritage engineering advocate Bruce Comfort, with a handshake from Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher, handed over one of the two original Pelton wheels used to provide electricity to the Waitaki community.
About 35 people attended the opening and handover in Chelmer St.
Mr Comfort had the Pelton wheel turbine installed in front of the Milligans Food Group building, the original site of power generation in Oamaru.
Mr Comfort, who in September received a council citizens' award for his work in identifying and recording the area's historic engineering, secured what he believed to be a reasonable facsimile of the Pelton wheel turbine used in Oamaru at Bede McGrath's Hari Hari farm.
He then called the original manufacturer, Gilbert Gilkes & Co, now Gilbert Gilkes and Gordon, in Kendal, United Kingdom, to find out the turbine's specifications.
He inquired about its serial number to determine the Pelton wheel's origins.
``And when they said it was purchased by the Oamaru Borough Council, I nearly died,'' he said. ``Now it's back home.''
While the Oamaru Borough Council, now the Waitaki District Council, received the Pelton wheels in 1916 it was not until 1918 the town was able to secure a generator.
The borough race, recognised by the New Zealand Institute of Professional Engineers as a regional civil engineering work of heritage, delivered massive amounts of high-pressure water.
It was intended to serve a town of up to 20,000 and it provided enough water to generate electricity. In what Mr Comfort called an ``unprecedented'' move, the people of Oamaru generated their own power with their water supply until government-supplied electricity reached Oamaru in 1926.
The turbine was rated at 230 horsepower, rotated at 333rpm and consumed 18,000 litres of water per minute.
