The ponds and brooks on the lot were the original power source for three woolen and grist mills. In addition to the two-hundred acres, Tech also received "all water rights, flowage rights, one corn cracker, one portable grist mill, one shoddy picker, one rag duster, one cupola fan, one water grindstone, one two-horse cart, pulleys, beltings, sacks, measures, grain and a Fairbanks standard scale." In 1908, Professor Charles M. Allen requested the addition of a meter station to be built across the street. This station was equipped with an eighty-four foot boom rotating from the power of water of a water wheel. When first established, it was used for thesis work and simple tests on water wheels, pumps and meter.
Worcester Tech became the possessor of the only adequate facilities in the country for testing the great rivers of both the East and West. Many models were created including the Connecticut, Ware, Penobscot, Androscoggin, Hudson, St. Lawrence, Niagara, St. Maurice, Columbia, Scesquehanna, Osage, and Missouri Rivers. In 1915, the facility was renamed the Alden Hydraulic Laboratory. Other projects involved the incorporation of a turbine first designed in Russia's Dneiperstroi, then used to generate power and light for the laboratory. An experimental station was later established in 1940 at the laboratory.
The laboratory was used extensively for commercial work for governments, municipalities, and power and ship and manufacturing companies. It was the department which prospered most with the war. The leadership of this facility established its place as the site for extensive research and defense technology. During the War, the many applications of flow phenomena became apparent. Assorted topics of hydraulic research included ballistics, propulsion, turbulence, diffusion, aerodynamics, oceanography, fog dispersal, and ship resistance. The laboratory performed projectile, hydrophone and endurance tests; calibrated ship logs were written, flood control surveys were made along with recommendations, in addition to the many dam and river models.
Since 1900, the laboratory grounds had been available as a practice area to students majoring in Civil Engineering. These students camped there for three weeks during the year, laying out imaginary railroads and highways under ideally simulated conditions. Another chore was the cutting of wood for the wood stoves used before the installation of oil and steam boilers. The name "Back Acres" was given to the woods by one of these students; a name so appropriate, it has never been changed.
It is openly obvious that the hydraulics facility, know both internationally and nationally, outclassed all others on campus. When the similarity between air flow and water flow became emphasized through aerodynamics, hydraulics switched to fluid mechanics. The air flow department (Aeronautical division) was then transferred to the Alden lab. Alden laboratories is still open just seven miles from campus in nearby Holden.
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