The doctor had pitched the same idea to Ben Duke,
J. B. Duke’s older brother, just five years earlier, shortly after performing an appendectomy
on him. Ben Duke was reluctant to invest more than $25,000 in Wylie’s
energy company and remained cautious about future investments. But following
that initial contribution, the Duke Brothers established the American Development
Company, Inc. to buy property bordering the Catawba River in North Carolina and even commissioned a map of potential water power sites in the Carolinas.