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

Pay day at Grand Coulee Dam

An army of men, reaching so far a maximum enrollment of more than 7,000 in the front rank at the dam site, is building Grand Coulee Dam. Behind those in the front rank are other battalions which cannot be seen from the vista houses on the rim of the Columbia River Canyon. They work in forests providing lumber; in mines and steel mills providing pipe, piling, reinforcement bars, etc.; in foundries and factories making machinery and equipment; on farms producing the food for these workmen; and for railroads which pour the products of all their labors through the funnel and into Grand Coulee Dam.

An amazing number of things go into the construction of such a dam. They range from tacks to dynamite caps, from divers' helmets to turbines, and they are gathered from almost every locality within, the United States.

So, while Grand Coulee Dam is the principal structure of a great, long-term undertaking of tremendous social significance, its construction has an immediate social value in that it gives millions of man-hours of work at prevailing wages throughout the country. It has sent an army of men marching back to work each day since the dam was started, back to work at the job of building a better America.