A power plant of Nidwalden’s own

In the 1920s and 1930s electricity was expensive in Nidwalden, because outside suppliers charged high prices per kilowatt hour. The watchword was «self-supply». The government and the council majority dismissed a power plant of the canton’s own as «fantasy».

Its supporters formed an initiative committee of six men at first. Among them was Christian Scheuber, the youngest of the gypsum miller brothers, a mechanic in Stans and since 1932 a liberal member of the cantonal council. They fought for a reservoir on Bannalp and a two-stage power plant from Oberrickenbach to Wolfenschiessen, against the government, the council and the traditional parties.

At the 1934 Landsgemeinde the people voted for the canton’s own plant. Christian sat on the building committee and designed and built the needle weir himself. He died in an accident in 1939, aged 66.

For decades it mattered less in Nidwalden whether someone was liberal or conservative than whether they had voted for or against Bannalp. Of Christian, chaplain Konstantin Vokinger wrote that he had become nothing but a Bannalp man and a Nidwaldner.

Source: Peter Steiner, «Notes on the family history», in the Book of the Scheuber.