Lester Allan Pelton - Death, Legacy and Awards

Death, Legacy and Awards

Pelton died in California on March 14, 1908, at age 78; he was buried at his family site in Vermilion, Ohio. His Pelton Runner design is still used today to produce hydroelectric power in the United States and around the world, as shown here. Later designs such as the Turgo turbine, first patented in 1919, and the Banki turbine were inspired by the Pelton wheel.

In 1895 The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, US, awarded Lester Pelton the Elliott Cresson Medal—now renamed the Benjamin Franklin Medal—for his accomplishments of invention in technology. Pelton was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006. There are memorials and monuments celebrating Pelton and the Pelton Runner mounted in Camptonville, California, in the Miners Foundry in Nevada City, California, and at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C., California Resort at Disney Land, among other sites.