The Grand Coulee Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Columbia River in Washington State. Construction of the dam began in 1933, and all work including the West Canal was finished by 1955. It was built to produce hydroelectric power and distribute water for irrigation.
The Columbia Basin Project Act was signed in 1943, and provided further authorization for the Grand Coulee. It oversees irrigation for over 650,000 acres of land via the Grand Coulee Dam and a large number of irrigation canals and reservoirs.
The collection consists of approximately 725 black and white photographs, which were taken by various photographers in Washington State during from 1935 to 1950, which was during the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam. Most of the photographs are individually dated and labeled with a description of the photograph, including the photographer, machinery pictured, and construction processes. According to information found on the photographs, they were taken for the purpose of keeping a record of the dam’s construction.
Machinery pictured in the collection includes concrete mixers and pourers, conveyor feeders and belts, trestles, barges, trimmer machine, irrigation equipment, siphons, and steel beams. These machines and materials were used to lay the foundation, build the structure, and create the irrigation facilities of the Grand Coulee Dam. Some construction companies involved in the dam’s build are the Utah Construction Company, Winston Bros. Co., Morrison-Knudsen Co., Walter W. Harfst Co., Inc., Minnis & Shilling, and Haas & Rothschild. Photographers such as A. F. Swanson, J. D. Roderick, John C. Hutton, F. B. Pomeroy, Harold E. Foss, and H. W. Fuller were responsible for the images in this collection. It is believed that the photographers were all working for the U.S. Army core of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, or similar organizations and the photographs were taken over the course of their employment.
The photographs are organized by their original numbering. There are four sections in the numbering system; the third is by far the largest section. Within each section these numbers are chronological, and a final folder at the end contains loose labels and backings which could not be identified.
These photographs were received from the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) department at WSU, who had previously scanned the photographs as 600 dpi tiffs. Those tiffs were renumbered to match the original photographic numbering and are retained in WSU MASC’s digital archives.
This collection is open and available for research use.
If, as is suspected, the images were produced by the U.S. government then they are in the public domain. Otherwise, copyright restrictions may apply.
[Item description]
Grand Coulee Dam and Columbia Basin Project Photographs, 1935-1950 (PC 182)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The materials were donated to the Washington State University Libraries’ Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC) on August 13, 2019 by Nikita Chrystephan from the WSU Civil and Environmental Engineering department, and retained as UPC19-06. The materials were simply found in the department; their earlier provenance is not known.
The materials were processed by WSU student Kaitlyn Van Vleet in August 2019. The physical photographs were sorted and foldered according to the original numbering as noted on the photographs. The digital images, which were received and retained as 600 dpi tiffs, were renamed to match that.
One small box of Washington State University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering photographs, consisting of NASA images, water towers, California highways, and more, were separated from the Grand Coulee Dam construction photos. They are retained as UPC 2019-06.
Frank Arthur Banks Papers, 1913-1957
Papers on Columbia River Basin Shipping and Development, 1934-1936
Ralph J. Kugelman Grand Coulee Dam Construction Photographs, 1930s
North Central Washington, Columbia Basin, and Grand Coulee Reclamation, Irrigation and Farming Photographs, 1905-1954
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.