Beneath the placid waters of Lake Roosevelt at this location lies what was once one of the most important native sites on the Columbia plateau - Kettle Falls. For thousands of years, Indians from as far as the Great Plains would gather here each year to harvest some of the millions of salmon that ascended the Columbia River. In the summer months, when salmon fight the current of the Columbia for over 700 miles to their breeding grounds in the small tributaries of the river, they can been seen flying through the air, jumping rapids along their route. Indian tribes from miles around would travel to the falls to harvest enough salmon to last the entire year. Around a thousand people would attend every year.

The falls were considered sacred ground, and tribes would fish side by side, even those who were at war with each other. Standing on planks over the falls, particularly strong men would stab at fish in the water, or as they were jumping over the rocks with long poles. The moving target could bring even the strongest man plunging into the water, but with careful balance, Indians were able to bring in the 15-20 pound catch without a splash. J-shaped baskets made out of willow were also attached to rocks so the tall end of the basket blocked the salmon as they leaped over the rapids, and falling into the basin. At the end of every day, the Salmon Chief would divide the catch among the tribes.

Other than catching fish, the tribes would socialize, share news, trade, and gamble. Family member and friends would reunite every year. Young men would have the opportunity to meet young women. But these traditions would end with the building of the Grand Coulee Dam. The last gathering, before the waters inundated the site, was in 1940. Known as the Ceremony of Tears, tribes celebrated and mourned a way of life that was ending after thousands of generations. Some people claim 3-5,000 people in attendance with 2-300 lodges on site others say it was closer to 8-10,000.

Between 1969 and 1974, the water was drawn down for dam construction and the falls emerged for a few short weeks. Now only a few days a year, the reservoir is low enough for the tallest rocks to break the surface, providing a faint reminder of what lies beneath.

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The Chief Joseph Fish Hatchery, being constructed by the Colville Tribe on this site, is part of an attempt to restore not only some threatened species, but also an endangered way of life. For many native peoples of the Pacific Northwest, life revolved around the annual salmon runs, which stretched along the river for millions of years. The legend was you could cross the river on the backs of salmon swimming upstream. Meriwether Lewis wrote, "the multitudes of fish are almost inconceivable."

Salmon began to decline in the late 1800s with over fishing and ecological disruption, but, according to Gerald Collins with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "none of these developments has had more impact on the survival of salmon than the construction of dams." The first dams that appeared on the mighty Columbia were small and used mostly for irrigation. By the end of the 19th century, larger hydroelectric power dams were having a greater impact on the salmon population. By the middle of the 20th century, major dams on the Columbia did more than block salmon runs; they changed entire ecosystems.

With the construction of the Rock Island Dam in 1933, the Colville Tribes in the Kettle Falls area saw an immediate drop in their salmon harvest from 1,300 fish in 1929 to 159 in 1934. One by one dams inundated ceremonial fishing spots such as Celilo Falls and Kettle Falls disrupting a way of life that had lasted for generations.

Salmon are now completely blocked from the upper Columbia by the Chief Joseph Dam, constructed in 1950. Various sources describe how plans for a fish ladder were discussed to allow salmon passage over the dam. However, with the Grand Coulee Dam blocking salmon passage just 51 miles upstream, the idea was dismissed. Other solutions, such as catching and moving the fish upstream, proved costly and inefficient.

Efforts to restore salmon to the upper Columbia include fish hatcheries. The Colville Tribe is currently operating the Chief Joseph fish hatchery in Bridgeport, WA. The hatchery is expected to produce 2.9 million Chinook salmon each year once it is fully operational in 2015, fulfilling needs for recreation, ceremonies, and subsistence.

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Bridgeport, WA was fading in into the surrounding fields and orchards, but was revived with the construction of the Chief Joseph Dam. Nestled on the outside of a bend in the Columbia River, the small single-square-mile town is home to the second largest hydropower producer in the country. The old mining town, turned agricultural center, was shrinking in population in the 1940s. Though engineers recommended a site just north of the town where Foster Creek spilled into the Mighty Columbia suitable for a dam in 1927, it would be two decades before the town would benefit from the economic and population boom.

As people trickled out of the farming town, the population sank to 300 and by 1940, Bridgeport could not longer sustain a four-year high school. Juniors and seniors had to ride a bus 45 minutes away to complete high school in a larger town. On approval of the dam project in 1946, Bridgeport's population started to grow and when construction of the dam began in 1950, the town's population suddenly grew ten times. The once disappearing town now struggled to meet the demands placed on its infrastructure by its new residents.

The solution was found with funding appropriated by congress, but it took some convincing. Just because the project was approved, congress still had to grant funds every year. Lobbying and public relations to convince congress to designate as much money as possible affected every aspect of the project, including the name. Originally the project was known as Foster Creek, but reported by the Spokesman Review, the decision was made to change the name to Chief Joseph, "so that legislators as far away as Washington D.C., would be impressed - not unimpressed by the damming of a mere creek."

After six years of construction, the dam was complete and the population of Bridgeport continued to rise. Today Bridgeport is the second largest population center in Douglas County. Recreation on the reservoir behind the dam, Rufus Woods Lake, includes fishing, boating, hiking and camping.

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Once a thriving Columbia River town, the site of Marcus now lies beneath the waters of Lake Roosevelt.

As the Grand Coulee Dam grew higher in the 1930s, the water of the Columbia River rose behind it. 150 miles of the free-flowing river was transformed into the placid Lake Roosevelt, drowning hundreds of acres of timber, farmland, Indian villages, and camas meadows. Also below the waters of Lake Roosevelt lie eleven little agricultural towns with names like Peach, Inchelium, and this town, Marcus, Washington.

The US government surveyed a line at 1310 feet above sea level and to mark the height of the coming flood waters. $10 million was spent buying property in the flood zone. A small house and property averaged about $3,000.

Marcus, settled in the 1860s and incorporated in 1910, was one of the largest towns below the flood line with 600 residents. By 1933 Marcus boasted a thriving Main Street with a post office, a general store, two groceries, a barber shop, beer halls, a movie theater, a bank and even a hospital. All of which was about to be under 60 feet of water.

A new Marcus was laid out a few miles away, but not everyone relocated there and the town never prospered. Other flooded towns met similar fates. Some towns merged with others already above the flood zone. The town of Kettle Falls was relocated to Meyers Falls. As the towns combined, the name changed to Kettle Falls because there were more residents from the original Kettle Falls living in what used to be Meyers Falls. Other towns were not completely flooded. Only half of Daisy was submerged under Lake Roosevelt and it was suspected that it might become a resort town with its new lakeside location. However the town eventually diminished to a stop sign and a convenience store.

Homes were not the only structures removed from the flood zone. A Works Progress Administration crew hurried to clear the flood zone completely before the high water of the spring of 1941. This included trees, railroad tracks, and old barns so they wouldn't start "bobbing up to the surface in years to come." The Great Northern terminal, originally in Marcus, was relocated to the new town of Kettle Falls. The government rebuilt 26 miles of railroad track and 227 miles of highway.

Though the original town of Marcus has lain below the waters of Lake Roosevelt for 60 Years, it is not forgotten. Many springs, as the lake is drawn down to generate power, the ghost town of Marcus is again visible. Sidewalks and streets and foundations rise from the water for a few days or weeks, reminding reminding us all of Marcus and the other drowned towns of the upper Columbia.

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In the depths of America's Great Depression, news of a huge construction project in Washington State brought a flood of unemployed men seeking jobs. The "mushroom towns of the Grand Coulee" sprouted to accommodate them. Workers arrived with nothing but the clothes on their backs and had to construct make shift housing with whatever they could find. Some lived in their cars, caves, or cardboard boxes. The dust of the desert invaded every space. The first paycheck often went to a small tent and a pair of boots.

As construction of the Grand Coulee Dam moved forward, contractors and the Bureau of Reclamation took on the additional project of creating living quarters and small towns for their employees. Mason City was built for the supervisors and foremen on the east side of the river, Engineers City for the Bureau of Reclamation on the west side of the river, and the laborers resided above the dam in the town of Grand Coulee.

Mason City, constructed by the contractor of the dam, MWAK, was part of the original $29 million construction project. It began with mess halls to feed labors and tourists. The rest of the town was plotted and planned by the company, including schools and recreational facilities. It was to be a "vice-free town" in contrast to Grand Coulee, home of the infamous "B Street." The houses were well designed and the town landscaped and manicured, providing a park with a lawn "large enough for people to rest on," a luxury for the desert area. The buildings were painted a variety of colors to prove that "even a construction town can be made beautiful" and there were recreation facilities for almost every type of sport.

After construction of the dam was complete, the town was going to be auctioned off, but control was transferred to the Municipal Division of the Columbia Basin Project and in 1948 joined with the town of Coulee Dam. In 1957 the government began the process of selling the town to the public, which was completed in 1959.

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This quiet street once had a national reputation - for drunkenness and debauchery.

B Street was the busiest street in the Columbia River Basin during the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in the 1930s. Construction workers came to spend their money on this mud street, which featured ramshackle structures, loud music, and fun-loving women. As construction began on the dam in 1933, opportunistic businessmen and women saw a profit to be earned from the influx of wage earners and provided the dam workers with entertainment and a place to spend their money.

The buildings were raised quickly and at first there was no power or sewer connection. Businesses ran off of well water and kerosene lamps increasing the danger of fires, two of which almost destroyed the entire street. Sewage was channeled to nearby Rattlesnake Canyon giving the street a distinct odor.

Two story buildings on both sides of the dusty or muddy lane contained bars, dance halls, and restaurants. Beer was sold at ten cents a glass. The second floors held sleeping rooms and prostitutes available for two dollars per twenty minutes. Venereal disease was so common that the town of Grand Coulee required weekly checkups and was described as "the cesspool of the New Deal."

Women also found jobs on The Street as taxi dancers in the dance halls. Purchasing tickets for five cents from the dance hall, they would charge ten cents per dance. The orchestras would sometimes play at a tempo so fast a couple could hardly make it around the floor for each dance.

The Street was connected to the sewer and electricity in 1934. This encouraged more business, increasing the street's repertoire to grocery stores, hardware stores, dry cleaners, movie theaters, and a bowling alley, mildly taming it's risqué image. Though the towns of Masson City, Electric City, and Grand Coulee thought of The Street as "the shanties" it was also described by former patrons of the area as, "the life of the party, where all of the action was." Residents of the surrounding towns, even married couples, would venture to the street where everything was "open because here you'd have these guys with their wives sitting out in cars watching all the action for entertainment" and collecting gossip about who they saw out on The Street.

As construction on the dam came to an end, and workers moved on to their next prospects, business slowed on B Street, and one by one the opportunistic entrepreneurs packed up and left. Now the buildings along this once rowdy strip house bait shops and convenience stores.

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Even before the dam was complete, Grand Coulee attracted visitors eager to view this unique geological landscape. Once construction started on the dam, sightseers came from all over the world to witness the creation of the "Eighth Wonder of the World" including two visits from President Roosevelt and one from President Truman. With the advent of the automobile, caravans of cars flocked to the Inland Empire, some driving over 700 miles out of their way to view what a few called the "white elephant in the desert". Promised to rival Niagara Falls, the Grand Coulee Dam attracted thousands of tourists a year while still under construction.

In a matter of years, what was once a sparsely populated desert became a top tourist stop. As construction began in 1933, MWAK, the company contracted to build the dam, built the Vista House to accommodate the increasing number of onlookers. The favorite attraction is watching the water spill over dam in the spring. In the 1950s the dam was illuminated with colored lights for nighttime visitors. Today, in the spring and summer months, the gates are opened at night and visitors are treated to a laser light show while the water flows over the dam.

The current Visitor's Center was part of the Third Powerhouse addition in the late 1970s. The design makes tourists feel like they are standing inside one of the generator rotators. Inside, there are exhibits on the dams origins, construction, and outputs, including videos about the dam itself and the geological forces that made this man-made wonder possible.

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Larger than all of the Pyramids of Giza put together, this mammoth concrete structure began as a dream in a small arid Central Washington farm town. In 1918, Billy Clapp, a lawyer in Ephrata, explained to Wenatchee Daily World editor Rufus Woods, that water from the mighty Columbia River could be dammed at the mouth of the Grand Coulee, pumped into the natural reservoir formed by the coulee, and then gravity-fed to the rich but dry farmland of Central Washington. Woods was convinced, and used his paper to promote this scientific marvel, which would turn the dusty towns of central and eastern Washington in to some of the most productive farmland in the world.

This small-town dream sat idle, however, until the early 1930s when the Great Depression and the election of a new president moved it forward. With encouragement from lobbyists, including Washington Senator Clarence Dill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the Grand Coulee Dam one of the cornerstone projects of the Public Works Administration. On July 16, 1933, construction began and lasted for eight years. The original plan was for a small dam to pump water into the irrigation system. As the United States became concerned about the war in Europe and Japanese expansion in the Pacific, the focus shifted from irrigation to the production of electricity for wartime industry and the dam doubled in size.

Though this project promised jobs to a work hungry country, electricity to housewives, and enough water to turn a desert into the Garden of Eden, it was not without critics. There was opposition from private electric companies who had invested in projects in the Columbia Basin already. Moreover, Congress was resistant to allocate funds. Francis Culkin, a New York Congressman, wanted to know who was going to buy all of the electricity, since jackrabbits and rattlesnakes "are not amenable to, as you know, to the processes of an electric meter."

As the project got underway, problems became apparent, including the displacement of towns in the flood zone and lack of infrastructure to support a project of this size. After the completion of the Third Powerhouse in 1975 the total cost of the project was $1,637,000,000.

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On the outskirts of Spokane's Central Business District lies a scattering of brick warehouses littered with the fading signs of a different era, including one advertising the Fairmont Creamery and Cold Storage.

Most of the buildings in this section of Spokane were businesses that sprang up in the early 1900s for the close proximity to the railroads. Many of these businesses dealt with the production and sale of perishable goods, relying on the rail lines to keep goods both cool and fresh. Many of these warehouses not only housed imported goods, they also relied heavily on ice to keep their goods cold.

Fairmont Creamery was a national company out of Omaha, Nebraska, that played an important part in Spokane's local economy. The office of the creamery occupied the suite at 116 W. Pacific from 1912 to 1937, but used the warehouses of Northwestern Cold Storage Co. Inc., later changed to Arctic Cold Storage and Warehouse Co.

In the early days, residents of Spokane would subscribe to a creamery much like a newspaper. Creameries would hire salesmen to peddle their product door to door to sign up households for weekly or daily deliveries. Milk, cream and butter were delivered to the doorstep by the milk truck and a milkman.

Though it seems like a large step from the udder to the front door, the cream actually originated from a local source. The Fairmont Creamery paid for cream by the pound from resident farms and dairy herds on the outskirts of the city and tested it at Wilson Produce in Colville before shipping it into Spokane in refrigerated cars on the Great Northern Railroad. By the 1920's produce companies were making weekly shipments to the creamery. Wilson Produce was shipping an average 17,575 pounds of cream a week.

It takes about five gallons of cream to make two pounds of butter. Farms and dairies would store excess butter to use in times of economic distress because it was the most profitable farm product and unlike milk, it could be stored. During the Great Depression cheese and butter were rare commodities sold on the black market and were often targets of theft. Butter has always been associated with wealth not only because it was expensive to make, but also due to a supposed spiritual value imparted by its prominence in the bible. The United States government was also aware of its value since butter was the first defined food, before the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938.

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The faded J&D Paints advertisement on the side of this building describes more than paint, it is a relic of a time when Spokane was a city of neighborhoods, each with its own miniature commercial district.

As the population of Spokane grew in the late 1800's, residential pockets sprouted around the major employment industries of the region, creating small, independent and self-sufficient neighborhoods. This section along the west bank of the Spokane River was once the commercial nucleus for one such neighborhood, the West Central district. West Central has experienced some growing pains since its development on the north side of Kendall Yards.

At the birth of Spokane, the land across the river was still wilderness and only reachable by a primitive ferry system. In 1887 William and William O. Nettleton bought the land and developed it into what would be in 1909 the neighborhood for the "up-and-coming middle class."

As the neighborhood developed, businesses came to W. Broadway including a grocery store, auto-repair shop, bakers, confectioners and barbers. Broadway Pharmacy was opened at 1730 W. Broadway in 1900 by Canadian James W. McArthur. It moved after the first year to 1726 W. Broadway and became a center of the community. The pharmacy did more than fill prescriptions. Not only could local residents receive medical advice from the druggist and find tonic for all remedies, but they could also find a variety of supplies and dry goods. It also served as a remote Post Office and place of voter registration for the citizens of Spokane.

McArthur became a well-known druggist, serving as President of the Washington State Pharmacy Association in 1901 and 1902. In 1909 Governor Hay asked him to resign as a member of the State Board of Pharmacy. The governor did not state a reason, but McArthur's friends suspected it was a result of a "rumpus with Joe Smith, a newspaper man in Olympia," where "he punched Joe in the face." The pharmacy remained in business until 1990 under various proprietors in two other locations. When the rail companies left these lines to deteriorate, the neighborhood followed. An effort by the local residents to rejuvenate this once thriving and bustling neighborhood, including getting Nettleton's Addition on the National Historic Register (the largest district in Washington state) has been successful.

Though Broadway Pharmacy has been in four locations along the street throughout its ninety-year history, the remaining building at 1722 W. Broadway and the fading advertisement is a reminder to the local residents of the rich history of the once thriving and prominent neighborhood of West Central.

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