Clamor for Rock Island Dam Began in 1908

“Dams and locks needed at Rock Island Rapids” — so said a headline in the Feb. 5, 1908 Wenatchee Daily World.

 

- Rod Molzahn

The story went on to extol the benefits of an “open river” between Wenatchee and Priest Rapids that would allow for trade with the new town of Beverly on the Milwaukee Railroad near the present site of Wanapum Dam.

A dam, the World said, “would be necessary at Rock Island. Water power might be developed to generate electricity to pump water for the irrigation of hundreds of acres of the finest land between Rock Island and Wenatchee.”

An engineer, C.C. Ward, believed the dam could be built for $500,000 or less.

It was envisioned then that the primary purposes of the dam would be irrigation, locks for ship passage and a slack water harbor at Wenatchee. Four years later the vision had grown to include power production.

In a May 1912 Daily World story steamboat captain Fred McDermott, a visionary of sorts, proposed that “the whole river can be harnessed, which would generate a power exceeding any existing utilized power in the West.”

Captain McDermott believed that — along with providing power for manufacturing, heating, lighting, electric railroads and a multitude of other advantages for the Wenatchee area — the dam could also extend irrigation to the Quincy Flat. Others saw the potential to irrigate 40,000 acres around Moses Lake with water pumped from the dam’s reservoir.

By 1913 the Wenatchee Daily World and its editor, Rufus Woods, were deeply involved in promoting a dam at the Rock Island Rapids.