Smuggler-Union Hydroelectric Power Plant, hydroelectric power station in Colorado, United States of America

The Smuggler-Union Hydroelectric Power Plant, also called the Bridal Veil Powerhouse, stands on a 400-foot cliff beside Bridal Veil Falls above Telluride, Colorado. Its 2+1/2-story wood-frame building rises from a poured concrete foundation with semicircular windows, and a semicircular bay with arched windows projects from the rock spur. The complex also includes a 1+1/2-story residence and a 1-story cookhouse.

The plant was built over 115 years ago and was among the first to use alternating current for power generation. It played a key role in electrifying nearby mining towns and contributed to the industrialization of the region.

The name comes from the Smuggler-Union Mine, the silver mine 2,000 feet below that the plant was built to power in 1907. Manager Buckley Wells, who proposed the plant, lived in its 1½-story residence as a summer home until the 1920s. The powerhouse is also called Bridal Veil Powerhouse after the adjacent falls.

The plant stands on a 400-foot cliff beside Bridal Veil Falls, directly above Telluride. It was originally reached in winter by an aerial tramway, since destroyed, so access today is on foot or by vehicle. The site is at high altitude; allow for steep ground and fast-changing mountain weather.

The plant's original 2,300-volt Westinghouse AC generator was still running in 1991, making it one of the oldest AC generators in operation. Eric Jacobson, who took a 99-year lease in 1988 and raised three children in the residence, restored it; he gave up the lease in 2010.