Best Festival Dedicated to Electrical Power

Where's Lucius Nunn when you need him? Back in 1891, the Telluride resident electrified the world when he and some colleagues built the first industrial hydropower plant (the Ames Plant) to produce alternating current. Two years later, the country's energy industry was revolutionized when Nunn and Nicolas Tesla exhibited their affordable-energy project at the Chicago World's Fair. But not all of Nunn's works were on such a global scale: He got his start in Telluride by building a bathtub that he rented out to miners, an enterprise that eventually funded his law practice and the subsequent purchase of the San Miguel Bank -- which was later robbed by Butch Cassidy. Nunn's Telluride Power Co. Building is now the Nugget Theater, home to the Telluride's Tech Festival, which last August honored the town's most energetic citizens.