Grand Coulee

Harnessing a Dream

Paul C. Pitzer

• Publisher: Washington State University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780874221138
• eBook ISBN: 9781636820828
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Accolades freely and frequently lavished on Grand Coulee Dam and the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project included "The Biggest Thing on Earth!" "The Eighth Wonder of the World!" and "The Largest Reclamation Project Ever Undertaken!" They highlight a monumental construction effort that spanned the 1930s through the 1980s. Now, for the first time, the story of this gigantic undertaking is told in this definitive history.

When completed, the eleven-million-cubic-yard monolith at Grand Coulee on the Columbia River in north central Washington became the largest single block of concrete ever laid and provided an abundance of electricity that helped win World War II. Still one of the world's largest energy-producing stations, it is at the heart of a dynamic power grid that supplies all of the western United States with energy.

The product of a long struggle over how to irrigate the Columbia Basin, Grand Coulee Dam resulted from the visions of eastern Washington residents, people like Wenatchee editor Rufus Woods and members of the Spokane Chamber of Commerce, who saw the undertaking as a dynamic plan to bring prosperity to their region. Yet today the reclamation enterprise--more than half a century after construction began--stands only half finished. Its future depends on the nation's need for food and the willingness of the public to pay the rapidly spiraling economic and environmental costs associated with such large-scale irrigation plans.

The fight for Grand Coulee Dam, and the story of its construction, is a vital and animated saga of people striving for dazzling goals and then working, often against both each other and nature, to build something spectacular. They accomplished their goal against the backdrop of the worst economic depression in the nation's history. The dam, and the extensive irrigation network it supports, stands today as a monument to their dreams and their labors.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• I The Land and the People
• II The Visions
• III The Columbia Basin Survey Commission
• IV The Government Investigations
• V Washington State’s Dam
• VI Preliminary Work
• VII MWAK’s Giant Cofferdam
• VIII Making it Bigger and Making it Legal
• IX MWAK Pours Concrete
• X Paying for the Biggest Thing on Earth
• XI Building a Community
• XII Henry Kaiser Builds the Dam
• XIII Land, Roads, Graves, and Salmon
• XIV Selling Grand Coulee’s Power
• XV World War II and the Break-in Period
• XVI Irrigation Comes to the Columbia Basin
• XVII Water, Water Everywhere
• XVIII To Build, Or Not To Build
• XIX The Third Powerhouse
• Afterword
• Appendix Physical Structures of the Columbia Basin Project
• Endnotes
• Bibliographical Note
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Index