In 1893 Richard Dean Adams, who headed up the Niagara Falls Cataract Construction Company sought Tesla's opinion on what system would be best to transmit power generated at the falls. Over several years there had been a series of proposals and open competitions on how best to utilize power generated by the falls with many systems being proposed by several US and European companies including two-phase and three-phase AC, high-voltage DC, and even compressed air. Adams pumped Tesla for information about the current state of all the competing systems. Tesla advised Adams that a two-phased system would be the most reliable and that there was a Westinghouse system to light incandescent bulbs using two-phase alternating current. Based on Tesla's advice and Westinghouse's demonstration that they could build a complete AC system at the Columbian Exposition, a contract for building a two-phase AC generating system at the Niagara Falls was awarded to Westinghouse Electric. A further contract to build the AC distribution system was awarded to General Electric.