This 1941 cover image shows the workers at the top of the battery doors of the Grand Coulee dam in the mile in the state of Washington.
During the 1920’s, there was a bitter debate as to whether a “low -feet low” was built in height, which would generate electricity without supplying irrigation, or a “high” height of a height of 550 feet that would provide enough electricity to pump water in the Columbia basin for irrigation.
In 1933, the United States Claim Office and a consortium of three companies called MWAK (Mason-Walsh-Atkinson Kier Co.) began to build a high dam, although they had only received approval for a low dam.
Finally, in 1934, with the construction, President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the site and approved the design of High Dam. This caused the Claim Office to decide to add the six companies, the successful group that had recently built Hoover Dam, to the Consortium Contracting, as the project had become larger.
Manufactured and installed by American Bridge Co., the 11 drum doors, each of 135 feet x 28 feet, provide a 1,485 feet long to be a movable spill crest.
When they are completely reduced, they have an exit capacity of 1 million feet per second, and when it is collected, it can increase the capacity of the deposit of 2.4 million feet, or 32%.
Completed in 1942, the electrical generation capacity of the 6,809 MW dam makes it the main electric power station of any kind.
