Grand Coulee Dam
When completed in 1941, Grand Coulee Dam was the world's largest concrete structure. It still is today. President Franklin D. Roosevelt supported this massive federal project to dam the Columbia River because it put people to work during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The dam would also produce huge amounts of electricity and supply water to irrigate over a million acres of new farmland. Officials thought the losses of salmon runs and riverside communities were unfortunate but necessary costs.
Thousands of workers spent eight years building the dam. They mined sand and gravel, polished 'bedrock for the foundation, and froze hillsides to prevent slides. They poured millions of yards of concrete and installed generators to produce electricity.
Completed just as the United States entered the Second World War, the dam's electricity powered critical wartime industries. Irrigation began in the early 1950s, when water was pumped through huge tubes from Roosevelt Lake, behind the dam, to Banks Lake on the plateau above. The Grand Coulee Dam is operated by the Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Department of the Interior. There is a visitors center at the dam.
World's Greatest Dam
THE Grand Coulee dam will be the largest darn in the world. Its striking features are tabulated below:
Length-4200 feet
Height-550 feet
Width at base 500 feet
Width at crest-32 feet
Spillway-1654 feet
Handles 1,000,000 feet per second
Concrete-11,250.000 cubic yards
Weight 23.000.000 tons
Capacity-2.640,000 horsepower
Two power houses, each 765 feet long
Each 292 feet high
Creates lake 151 miles long
Generators weigh 2,000.000 pounds
From the plaque at Crown Point