Archives West Finding Aid

Construction on the Grand Coulee Dam in east central Washington occurred from 1933 to 1942 as part of the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project. The dam is 168 m (550 ft.) high and 1,592 m (5,223 ft.) long and creates Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake (243 km/151 miles long). It is used for flood control, river regulation, irrigation, and power production; its hydroelectricity-generating capacity, which totals nearly 6,500 MW, makes it one of the world's greatest hydroelectric installations. Excavation of the site began in July of 1933; earth moving operations began after that date. Constuction began late in 1935 and continued through the end of 1939. When the structure was completed, installation of the spillway gates and powerhouses began. All intial construction was completed in 1942. The Grand Coulee Dam makes possible the Columbia Basin Project, the largest single reclamation project ever created in the United States. In all, the project area of over 2,500,000 acres is roughly twice the size of the state of Delaware. The total includes 333 miles of main canals, 3,498 miles of drains and waste-ways, and four large dams besides the Grand Coulee. In addition, there is an enormous pump-generating plant near the Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake (the reservoir formed by Grand Coulee Dam).

The first water was spilled over the Grand Coulee Dam, on June 1, 1942, making it the largest concrete dam in North America. Nine years earlier, on July 16, 1933, the first stake was driven into place, initiating the construction of this immense project. When Franklin Roosevelt's New Dealers began the Columbia Basin Project in 1933, they hoped to create a "Planned Promised Land," where displaced Dust Bowl refugees would find homes on small farms of about 80 acres each. Before any of the land received water, however, World War II and the rapid changes that it brought altered this vision. The Columbia Basin Project, as it emerged in the 1940s and 1950s, differed from the blueprint drawn two decades earlier. The changes continued into the 1980s and 1990s.

The power and the irrigation provided by the Columbia Basin Project makes it an important contribution to the Northwest's economy. Grand Coulee Dam is famous because of the electricity it has generated since 1942, and it is a popular attraction, visited by thousands annually.