Notes
The Condit Dam and hydroelectric project was completed in 1913. The woman standing in the woodstave pipeline gives some sense of scale. The pipeline is just over 14 feet in diameter, and carries water about a mile from the dam to the power station. The power station has a maximum generating capacity of 14.7MW.
After a political and legal battle that has lasted many years, the Condit Dam is scheduled to be decommissioned and removed this October. If it happens as scheduled, it will be the largest dam removal project in the United States to date.
Category: [Klickitat County]
Tags: 1910s Condit_Dam dam Davidson electricity Klickitat_County
Comments
According to local historian Keith McCoy, the power for this project was exported mainly to the Camas paper mill.
l.e. on 11th April 2011 @ 7:24am
It makes sense that there was a large industrial customer. The local population in 1913 couldn't consume anywhere near that much power, and I don't think there was much of a grid to ship it elsewhere.
Arthur on 11th April 2011 @ 3:40pm
The pipe runs down the east side of the river but, I am having trouble picturing the WS River to the right of the pipe.
Because PP&L interconnected the Powerdale lines with the Condit lines.....
"By 1924, the Hood River Valley had earned the reputation of being one of the most electrified farming sections in the U.S."
l.e. on 11th April 2011 @ 3:51pm
I think this view is looking north (based on shadows, late in the day), though it's possible the negative was flipped just like the asparagus field. Does anyone know the area well enough to be sure?
Arthur on 11th April 2011 @ 5:42pm
Yes, you are right. Looking north.
l.e. on 12th April 2011 @ 9:36am
Brilliant pic Arthur!! Hey, I've been updating my CuriousGorgeBlog, so if you Google it and click on #76 Condit dam, you'll see a heap of pix from the dam's construction. Cheers, scott
Scott Cook on 11th May 2011 @ 1:10pm
The Enterprise, White Salmon, WA., September 13, 1912, page 1 FILL AT DAM HAS STARTED
Pipe Line Largest In The United States
The business center of operations at the dam site is now the west bank. Here the powerful rock crushers, sand makers and concrete mixers are at work, for the fill of the river bed began on Sunday. From the bed of the river to the top of the bank is a distance of about 500 feet. At the top is the quarry from which 30,000 tons of rock will be dropped to the crushers thence to the mixer farther down, from which it is being poured into the gorge. High up towards the top of the bank is a donkey engine, a little speck, but which required some engineering to place up there so high. There are many interesting things about this dam making, and every Sunday visitors are attracted, so much so that they have been forbidden descending down the stairway to the bottom of where they would interfere with the work.
Though it appeared too gigantic an undertaking to accomplish in a few months it will not be long after the first of the year before the fill is completed, the big pipe line down, and the power house in, for work on these three divisions goes on simultaneously.
Preceded by blasts, the steam shovel is now plowing up close to the dam, in its one mile course from the power house site. The pipe which is to carry the flow of the river is 131⁄2 feet in diameter and is the largest pipe line of its kind in the United States. In one hour 35,000,000 gallons of water will flow through this big pipe on its way to the two turbines which will generate the 20,000 h.p. which the plant is to furnish. Just before the flow takes its sheer drop of 160 feet to the turbines it divides into two nine-foot pipes, one for each turbine.
L.E. on 8th January 2020 @ 10:45am