, Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

 – 2 April 1925 Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

 and educator who founded Telluride Association

Telluride Association

The Telluride Association is a non-profit organization in the United States that provides young people with free educational programs emphasizing intellectual curiosity, democratic self-governance, and social responsibility. Students are invited to apply based on academic criteria, such as high...

 and Deep Springs College

Deep Springs College

Deep Springs is a private, all-male , alternative college in Deep Springs, California, in the United States. A two-year college, the institution currently aims for a student body size of 26, though the number is occasionally lower...

. He received his higher education at Oberlin College

Oberlin College

Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...

 and for a year studied law at Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

.

Career

In 1880 moved to Telluride

Telluride, Colorado

The town of Telluride is the county seat and most populous town of San Miguel County in the southwestern portion of the U.S. state of Colorado. The town is a former silver mining camp on the San Miguel River in the western San Juan Mountains...

, Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

 where he started a law practice and dealt in real estate. By 1890 he had become involved in gold mining, journalism, and banking within the small community. His bank, the First National Bank of Telluride, was the only bank in the county at the time. In order to help his mining operations prosper, Nunn financed the world’s first commercial A/C

Alternating current

In alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. In direct current , the flow of electric charge is only in one direction....

 power plant, the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant

Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant

The Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant, located near Ophir, Colorado, was the world's first commercial system to produce and transmit alternating current electricity. It is now on the List of IEEE Milestones....

. This plant, built by George Westinghouse

George Westinghouse

George Westinghouse, Jr was an American entrepreneur and engineer who invented the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry. Westinghouse was one of Thomas Edison's main rivals in the early implementation of the American electricity system...

, became part of the Nunn’s Telluride Power Company which would later become part of Utah Power and Light

PacifiCorp

PacifiCorp is an electric power company in the northwestern United States.PacifiCorp has three primary subsidiaries:# Pacific Power is a regulated electric utility with service territory throughout Oregon, northern California, and southeastern Washington.# Rocky Mountain Power is a regulated...

. Nunn continued investing in the power industry and helped design the Ontario Power Plant in Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls

The Niagara Falls, located on the Niagara River draining Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, is the collective name for the Horseshoe Falls and the adjacent American Falls along with the comparatively small Bridal Veil Falls, which combined form the highest flow rate of any waterfalls in the world and has...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

. To staff the power plants Nunn created a work study program called the Telluride Institute, headquartered in Olmstead located in the Provo Canyon

Provo Canyon

Provo Canyon is a canyon located in unincorporated Utah County, Utah, USA and Wasatch County, Utah. Provo Canyon splits between Mount Timpanogos on the north and Mount Cascade on the south. The canyon extends from Orem on the west end to Heber City on the east. The canyon's main thoroughfare is...

 near Orem, Utah

Orem, Utah

Orem is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States, in the north-central part of the state. It is adjacent to Provo, Lindon, and Vineyard and is about south of Salt Lake City. Orem is one of the principal cities of the Provo-Orem, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Utah and...

. Upon completion of the course the graduates were sent on to gain further education through the issuance of scholarships. Many of these students went on to study at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

, where they resided at Telluride House, managed by Telluride Association

Telluride Association

The Telluride Association is a non-profit organization in the United States that provides young people with free educational programs emphasizing intellectual curiosity, democratic self-governance, and social responsibility. Students are invited to apply based on academic criteria, such as high...

, which Nunn founded.

Nunn was forced to sell his portion of Telluride Power in 1912 due to disagreements with other stockholders, which led to the closure of the Olmstead educational site and the suspension of the Telluride Institute program.

Accomplishments

The Telluride Association at Cornell (and in time elsewhere) remained, and still remains, in existence. Its mission eventually expanded to encompass a variety of intellectually intense residential houses for college students, summer programs for high school students, scholarships, and other activities, all coeducational. Finally he founded Deep Springs College

Deep Springs College

Deep Springs is a private, all-male , alternative college in Deep Springs, California, in the United States. A two-year college, the institution currently aims for a student body size of 26, though the number is occasionally lower...

 in 1917, a highly regarded two-year college built on the "Swinging T Ranch" in the remote Deep Springs Valley

Deep Springs Valley

Deep Springs Valley is a high desert valley in the Inyo-White Mountains of Inyo County, California. It is east of the Owens Valley and the Sierra Nevada mountain range, and south of Fish Lake Valley, Nevada, near the California-Nevada state border....

, California. The college is similar in style to the Telluride Institute, in that students must work while completing their academic requirements and are engaged in a significant measure of self-governance.

Nunn died in 1925 as a result of tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

 which he contracted a decade earlier. He was laid to rest on 7 April 1925 in Forest Lawn Memorial Park

Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale

Forest Lawn Memorial Park is a privately owned cemetery in Glendale, California. It is the original location of Forest Lawn, a chain of cemeteries in Southern California. The land was formerly part of Providencia Ranch.-History:...

, Glendale, California

Glendale, California

Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...

.