Twice Risen
Schiller's vision helps save the Manchester Steam Plant from ruin

When Avery Schiller gazed across the Merrimack River from where he stood outside the dark and abandoned steam plant that had once powered the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, he must have wondered what the future held. He lived in Manchester-a city literally built on textile millwork-suddenly left without its mills.

It was 1937-just two years after the Great Depression forced Amoskeag to shutter its doors and only one year after the great flood of 1936 heavily damaged the mills and the steam plant which powered them. After these two events, everyone assumed a sorry end to Manchester's showcase of industry was inevitable.

It was the vision of Avery Schiller and others that led to the renewed success of the millyard and the city of Manchester. That success continues today.

Its work as a power plant completed, the former Manchester Steam Plant was taken out of service in 1981. For 72 years, the plant's 64 boilers fed turbines that powered the hopes, dreams and prosperity of several generations in New Hampshire.

Today, Manchester's millyard is home to software companies, high-tech corporations, restaurants and many other businesses. And the former steam plant rests in the cradle of Manchester's industrial heritage. Its restoration by Manchester's visionary leaders in 1937 helped save an industry and a city.

As the new corporate headquarters of Public Service of New Hampshire, the Manchester Steam Plant-now PSNH Energy Park-serves as an important connection to Manchester's rich industrial past, while providing a vital link to Manchester's bright and boundless future…a future that Avery Schiller always believed in.