Archives West Finding Aid

Everett Steven (b. 1885) and Milton Emery (1886-1969) Dam were two of three sons of Alton S. Dam, one of the early proponents of irrigation development in Washington State. Milton and Everett Dam received business training in Seattle and established the Dam Brothers brokerage firm there. In addition to their brokerage business, the two brothers spent more than two decades promoting the construction of a large hydroelectric dam at Priest Rapids. Their older brother Oscar (b. 1883) graduated from the University of Washington and worked for the U.S. Customs service in Seattle.

All three Dam brothers were born in South Dakota, where Alton Dam and his wife Anna moved shortly after their marriage in 1863. In 1893, the elder Dam moved his family to Washington's Yakima Valley, where he took an active role in the development and settlement of the Valley, with a particular interest in large-scale irrigation enterprises. In 1903, while he was advising the federal government regarding Reclamation projects, Alton Dam realized the potential of one of the locations under consideration, Priest Rapids in Grant County, on the Columbia River. Around 1905, Everett and Milton Dam began to work actively with their father towards the development of the Priest Rapids project. When Alton Dam died suddenly in 1911, Milton and Everett took up the reins on the project, which proposed to build the largest hydroelectric plant in the world. The related Priest Rapids Highlands Project would use the power thus generated to irrigate the fertile land adjacent to Priest Rapids.

The Dam brothers formed a corporation, the Washington Development and Irrigation Company, to finance construction of the dam at Priest Rapids. Headed by General Electric's Henry J. Pierce, the corporation held the license for the Priest Rapids projects but received little in the way of financial support from General Electric and other companies that were sponsoring the project. The Dam Brothers firm undertook to arrange financing but was met with opposition from both potential investors and regulatory authorities, who wanted to see proof of a market for electric power as part of the overall development. Consequently, the Dam Brothers began to promote a variety of projects at Priest Rapids in addition to the dam, including nitrate and fertilizer plants and the electrification of Northern Pacific Railroad tracks across the Columbia.

In addition to these industrial projects, the Dam brothers proposed that the surplus of this cheap electrical power be used to irrigate 100,000 acres of land adjacent to Priest Rapids, half of which was owned by the Dam brothers and their associates and Henry Pierce. The Dam brothers used their land holdings to demonstrate the adaptability of the soil and climate to raise both agricultural crops and livestock. They raised alfalfa at their Diamond "D" ranch, and livestock at their Saddle Basin ranch, where they developed a water pumping system to water thousands of head of sheep, cattle and horses.

Still unable to arrange financing, however, the two Dam brothers left Seattle in 1928 and spent the next few years traveling across the U.S. and Canada in search of backers for the Priest Rapids project, ultimately without success. In 1930, the Federal Power Commission would not renew the license for Priest Rapids Dam. Milton Dam returned to Seattle, where he became involved in real estate development in central Washington. Milton Dam died in Placer County, California in 1969. Everett worked as a securities trader in New York, where he remained until at least 1964.