LAKE ROOSEVELT The Grand Coulee Dam and the Columbia Basin Reclamation Project

Left: Franklin Delano Roosevelt President of the United States. Right: Frank A. Banks, Construction Engineer U. S. Bureau of Reclamation

"Coming back to Grand Coulee after 3 years I am made very happy by the wonderful progress I have seen. We look forward not only to the great good this will do in the development of power, but also in the development of thousands of homes. There are thousands of families in this country who are not making good because they are trying to farm on poor land, and I look forward to the day when the valley is dammed up to give the first opportunity to these American families who need some good farm land in place of their present farms. They are a splendid class of people, and it is up to us as a Nation to help them to live better than they are living now, So, in a very correct sense, it is a national undertaking and doing a national good."

—President Roosevelt, Grand Coulee Dam, October 2, 1937.