--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Kay, Hyrum collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 29 number: 3 published: 1926-01 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Kay, Hyrum, “The American Falls Dam and Project,” *Improvement Era* 29, no. 3 (January 1926): 253–257." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2903unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2903unse start_page: 253 end_page: 257 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1926-01) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2903unse publication_year: 1926 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1926, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The American Falls Dam and Project THE OLD RAILROAD BRIDGE OVER THE SNAKE AT AMERICAN FALLS THE AMERICAN FALLS DAM AND PROJECT By Hyrum Kay The city of American Falls, Idaho, is destined to play an im- portant role in the development and reclamation of the great area of Southern Snake River Valley. This city with its two thousand inhabitants and all its industrial and commercial and residential ramifi- cations and activities have been moved to higher ground about a mile away from its first location, at a cost of great sums of money. The purpose is to give place to one of the largest reserviors in the United States, the waters of which will irrigate thousands of acres of here- tofore unwatered land in the valleys and mesas of the Snake River valley. The mad Snake River of the Rocky Mountains has been lassoed, conquered and harnessed to increase future agricultural output of a vast region, and to do the will of man. The dam will make available for farms, thousands of acres of the most fertile lands in the state. Western American history began, so to speak, within a stone's throw of American Falls, when the famous Fort Hall was established in the summer of 1834. The Fort Hall site, like the low-lying part of the moved city, will be inundated when the great dam is completed. A fresh water lake will cover its historic "bottoms," a distance of approximately eight by eighteen miles. Soon a monumental electric shaft will mark the spot where the historic old Fort Hall stood. American Falls, Idaho, is one of the numerous young cities of the great Western areas. Fort Hall was its father, and Pocatello its younger brother. They are still on the old farm located by Nathaniel J. Weyeth, of Boston, who chose the junction of the low-lying bottoms of the Portneuf and Snake rivers for a trapper's camp and fort, in the summer of 1834. He named Fort Hall after Mr. Hall, also of Boston, who outfitted Weyeth for a consignment of trappers' and traders' supplies, which, however, the consignee refused. This forced Weyeth to camp and try the game of trapping himself. He failed and sold the outfit, fort and all, to the Hudson Bay Fur Company, a British concern, which by right of discovery and occupation held dominion 254 IMPROVEMENT ERA over the fur industry from Hudson's Bay, in Canada, to the south- flowing streams of Idaho, with headquarters at Montreal. They controlled a territory sixteen hundred miles in extent. Their opposi- tion to competitors forced Weyeth out of business. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Uncle Sam and John Bull were sparring over a great area of mysterious, untraveled and practically unknown land. Uncle Sam was feeling his way westward, prospecting for opportunities, and in the effort discovered himself trespassing upon foreign territory — Spain, Mexico, and England. Believing in service and fair play, and carrying the big stick, speaking softly, but fighting when necessary for his rights, made hisj victorious way westward. The main outpost of this period was in St. Louis, Missouri, a distance from Fort Hall westward of about twelve hundred miles. American men of mettle, by chosen appointment, succeeded in cross- ing the mighty Rocky Mountains at two passes. The South Pass eventually became the old Oregon Trail, with the great Snake river a barrier to wagon transportation, and Fort Hall as the end of the wagon trail to the far western outpost. American Falls, Fort Hall, Pocatello, Ross Fork, merge in history, and are near the 45th meridian and about 112 longitude. American Falls has an altitude of 4,347 feet and lies twenty-five miles south- west of Pocatello, and about fifteen miles south of the site of old Fort Hall. Ross Fork, the headquarters of the Fort Hall Indian Reserva- tion, and the home of the Bannock, Shoshone and Lemhi Indians, is located on Ross Fork Creek, twelve miles north of Pocatello, and is named after Alexander Ross, a Scotchman, chevalier of the old school, hunter, early explorer and writer. He found a tribe of Indians on the plains of Idaho who made cornmeal cakes similar to the bannock cakes of Scotland, and therefore, he called the Indians by that name. He is known as a good mixer in the tribal socials of the Red Men, having taught the Shoshone maidens the old Scotch reel. He is said occasion- ally to have donned a suit of medieval armor and performed startling stunts, to the great wonder of the natives. Southern Idaho has distinct and well recognized geological aspects. In remote days, it was the boiling place of a score of volcanoes' which changed its original contour and left a hardened bed of lava, forty miles wide and forty miles long. Later, the historic Lake Bonneville, burst its bounds and rushed through the channels, now the bed of the Portneuf river and the Snake, and on to the Pacific ocean. It took ages for Mother Nature to reforest the burnt area and clothe it in flowers and verdure; but the soil is fertile, though largely lava ashes, and there are elements here, when combined with our marvelous air and sunshine, that can sustain a great nation of people. Our mountains are our treasure houses. All about this part of the country, remain evidences of antique races, discoveries of relics which in themselves would make in- teresting reading, as would the tracing of the name. "Snake," as. 3 TO 3 d. 4 ^ -rf £ to •<; o ^ CU^S S 3 S "3 »*d D. 3" ,-, OQ < 3 O — 3 oq « o 3 ro _^ ^S-'d ST- 2,mo o ra H. 5' Ch n >— w «« O ^ ^ <-*£ 3 ro -t „, " " —9 «. 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There are tentative plans afoot to erect an electrically lighted memorial shaft, resembling a lighthouse, on the spot in the new lake where Fort Hall was located. Nothing remains of the old fort save a ditch which was once used as a rifle pit or moat. The site was relocated, and a marker placed on the spot on July 27, 1919. The American Falls dam, with its reclamation project, will cover the historic spot with a lake of water approximately eight by eighteen miles in size. The dam will impound 1,700,000 acre feet of water. The whole population of American Falls numbers 2,200. There were eight churches, two schools, eighty-four business concerns, one electric power plant, one flour mill and the Union Pacific railroad, all of which have been removed to higher ground, and the old town site will be covered with water. The new town site was built at a cost to the Government of $400,000, and the new American Falls is one of the model cities of the West, including eight miles of new sidewalks, seven miles of sewers, nine miles of water mains and twelve miles of graded and graveled streets. A public square and park, nine acres in extent, forms the center of the town site, around which will be built churches, public buildings, court house, city hall, library and apartment houses. The improved area of the new town covers three hundred acres and is divided into 867 lots free of bonded indebtedness of all kinds. Water is supplied from a new reservoir with a capacity of 1,500,000 gallons pumped from a large fresh spring on the west side of the reservoir. The site was planned by Mr. Russell V. Black, expert city planner. The old town was to be entirely vacated by December, 1925. The work on the dam is a state enterprise, although the leader- ship of individuals has proved an important factor. D. F. Banks, engineer in charge, and an employee of the Government Reclamation Service, assisted by Barry Dibble, supervised the dam-construction. A feature of the mammoth enterprise was the raising of the O. S. L. railroad bridge, spanning the great Snake river twenty-two feet without any delay to trans-continental trains. Hydraulic jacks were used. Another local feature has been the gradual moving of the Idaho Power Company's plant from the west side of the river to the east side where it now stands like a castle on the Rhine, in modern attire, distributing 200,000 capacity horse-power. The length of the American Falls dam is 5,227 feet, 83 feet high, width at base 75 feet. The area covered by water is sixty-one thousand acres in the reservoir which is twenty-five miles long with an average width of three and one-half miles and having a capacity of 1,700,000 THE AMERICAN FALLS DAM 257 acre feet storage. This reserves 500,000 acre feet for other new pro- jects, namely: Shoshone project, the Minidoka extension, the Empire District and the Fort Hall project, the latter being tributary to American Falls, and a part of it is now under irrigation. Irrigation water may be obtained at $5 per acre foot. The actual cost of the dam and necessary right of way will approximate $7,000,000. The dam and reclamation project was dedicated July 13, 1925, the corner-stone of the dam being laid at 10 a. m., by Elwood Mead, U. S. Commissioner of Reclamation. Addresses were made by Hubert Work, Secretary of Interior; Elwood Mead, Senator W. E. Borah, Gov. Charles C. Moore of Idaho, and Gov. George H. Dern of Utah, and Chief Tea Pobriko of the Bannock Tribe, who spoke in his native tongue. Pobriko, in full regalia, made his address which has been interpreted and reproduced as followsi: SACRIFICE OF THE INDIANS BY CHIEF TEA POBRIKO "Mr. Chairman, Honorable Secretary of the Interior, Ladies and Gentlemen: I consider it a great honor to be permitted to say a few words in behalf of my people on this great occasion. I wish that I might be able to make you realize the sacrifice we have made in order that this great dam might be a reality. I was one of the delegates who went to Washington in behalf of my people and agreed to the flooding of our lands. In giving up this great tract of land necessary for this reservoir, we have shared with you our already limited supply of bread and butter. We needed this land in our humble way of making a living. No one but a member of our tribe can realize what this sacrifice means to us. It is a part of our inheritance, a part of the land which was given to us by the treaty of '68. It is a part of our winter home, and it is only because of the fact that this reservoir will provide homes for a great many white people that we have consented to share our land with you. "We realize that you are great and strong, while we are poor, humble, few in number and gradually growing weaker. In conference with our superintendent, and after considering what this great work means to the government, we come to realize that the sacrifice was necessary. First, to provide homes for the increasing multitudes of white people, and second, because we want to live in peace and harmony with our wiaite brothers. We want you to be our friend and we want to be your friend. We want to improve our homes and farms as you improve your homes and farms. We want our children to grow up to be good men and women, just as you want your children to be good men and women. We want to be loyal to that flag. "We beg of you to be fair and patient with us, help us in our humble way: help us to educate our children: care for our sick, and teach us to obey and respect your laws. We want to be a part of this great nation that controls all of this country that once was ours. We realize that the old days and the old customs have passed. We are trying to adapt ourselves to your ways. With your consideration and fair treatment we feel that we will succeed. I thank, you." The celebration included day-light fire works, band concerts, ball games, rodeo, carnival booths, and a historic pageant entitled, "The Spirit of Idaho." Pocatello, Idaho. Chief Tea Pobriko