Historic American Engineering Record no. WA-24 (Skagit River and Newhalem Creek Hydroelectric Projects) photograph collection, 1920-1989

The Skagit River Hydroelectric Project in Washington State began in 1918 and ended in 1961 with the completion of the Ross Dam. It includes the Gorge, Diablo, and Ross dams and powerhouses, and is affiliated with the smaller Newhalem Creek Hydroelectric Project, which includes the Newhalem dam and powerhouse. The fifty-year span of the project saw political battles, economic setbacks, and innovations both structural and ideological.

In 1917, with the city of Seattle suffering through an electricity shortage, Seattle City Light (then known as the Seattle Department of Lighting) and its superintendent of lighting, James Delmage (J.D.) Ross, decided on the Skagit River as a potential site for development. After several months of negotiation with the National Forest Service, City Light was able to apply for a permit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop the Skagit for hydroelectric power.

The original plan included just one dam and powerhouse, to be built at Ruby Creek. This site was considered optimal because it offered the possibility of a large storage reservoir. However, circumstances were such that two more dams would need to be built before construction could begin on the Ruby Creek facility. Beginning in 1920, City Light constructed a small plant on Newhalem Creek. The main purpose of the plant would be to supply power for the building of subsequent facilities. City Light also built a 26-mile railroad to facilitate travel between Rockport and the site of the next step in the project, the Gorge powerhouse. Although the unusual design of the Gorge plant caused a few problems initially, it was up and running by 1925.

Although J.D. Ross and Seattle City Light considered the Ruby Dam to be the most important dam on the Skagit, yet another dam would have to be built first. The Ruby site reservoir had to be cleared of timber, and the best way to do this was to build the Diablo Dam and powerhouse. The dam would facilitate water transport of logs, while the plant would supply power for the project. Lars Jorgenson and his consulting firm, the Constant Angle Arch Dam Company, were selected to design the Diablo Dam.

Unfortunately, setbacks occurred at almost every corner. Seattle City Light had long been embroiled in a rivalry with the investor-owned Puget Sound Power and Light. A mysterious telegram sent to the local engineer of the Federal Power Commission insisted that the constant-angle arch dam design planned for Diablo was unsafe. The message was suspected to be part of a campaign of "sabotage" coming from Puget Sound Power and Light. Nor could Ross always hope for support from the city.

The tricky geographical layout of Diablo Canyon necessitated some innovative thinking upon the part of the builders, but after two years of construction, Diablo Dam was dedicated in August of 1930. The design of the powerhouse, however, was the subject of yet another battle, this one between J.D. Ross and city engineer Reginald Thomson. Although Ross prevailed, the project ran out of money shortly thereafter, and construction stopped for nearly four years. Diablo finally came online in September of 1936.

Once the Newhalem, Gorge, and Diablo dams and powerhouses were completed, City Light could finally begin work on the Ruby Dam. With its large reservoir, the dam would be able to help with flood control on the lower Skagit. The first two phases of the dam construction were completed by 1949, and the third phase was to begin when the city's power needs demanded. Thirty years later, however, when greater power became necessary, City Light decided instead to purchase power from British Columbia. Thus, the Ruby Dam -- renamed the Ross Dam after the superintendent's 1939 death -- remains unfinished.

The towns of Newhalem and Diablo grew out of the accomodations built for project workers and their families. Newhalem, originally called City Camp, included bunkhouses, a commissary, and even a small theater hall for community events. In the early 1920s, a set of houses was built for project personnel. This neighborhood was known as Silk Stocking Row. Newhalem soon became a popular tourist destination, where visitors could take two-day tours to the Diablo and Ruby sites. J.D. Ross felt it was important to make improvements to the small town, which he hoped one day would be a tourist resort, and enlisted the support of the women of Newhalem in beautifying houses and adding flowers and trees. In 1929, Ross built the Ladder Creek Falls Arboretum. Its son-et-lumiere show told the history of the Skagit project in words and images. The tourist trade continued briskly until the war began in 1941; the Skagit project area was then designated as a "vital wartime industry" and closed to the public.

The town of Diablo, a few miles upstream from Newhalem, came into being as another construction camp in the late 1920s. Ross' plan for Diablo was to make it a Newhalem-like tourist attraction -- he even opened a zoo (featuring animals not native to the Pacific Northwest) and hoped to create a large park to show off the zoo and landscaped gardens. Few of Ross' imagined attractions would become reality at Diablo.

Original negatives of the copy prints listed in the Historic Photographs section of the collection inventory (items 157-231) of this finding aid are located at the Seattle Municipal Archives. Please contact the Seattle Municipal Archives for reproductions.