How dangerous that had to be!!!!!!!!!!!

To have a hillside like that devoid of vegetation, with men out there on what looks like wooden walk ways built could have proven disasterous, to say the least. I would assume they are using shovels and picks to move dirt and rock.

I would guess that during rainy weather there would be no way men could work up there.

Just shows what a "rare" breed of men lived in that time and what determination to accomplish a job of that magnitude.

Charlott on 20th October 2011 @ 7:07am

All I can say is WOW....and Charlott, a rare breed of men indeed. Not only to get the job done, but to do that type of job to provide for their family. I am intrigued by the system of walkways or shutes coming down the hill. Do you think they actually got the dirt down that way?

Connie on 20th October 2011 @ 7:30am

I am so glad you are showing these photos.
I think people are so excited about the removal of the dam, they are missing the admiration for what it took to build the dam.
Whether it was right or wrong, I feel respect for the engineering skills, and the fearless hard labor that went into harnessing energy.

l.e. on 20th October 2011 @ 7:45am

Now I am trying to figure out what the "spare" type pole in the center with the wires/cables on it was used for.

Could they have used the same type of water blasting that they did in some of the California mining operations prior to that era and probably doing it. There appears to be flumes and they had to play into the operation some way.

Charlott on 20th October 2011 @ 8:22am

Just noticed something....look way up to the top and there appears to be a big flume running across. Wonder if they were using water to wash that hillside down....Looks like wash areas above where the men are working....

Charlott on 20th October 2011 @ 8:23am

Where is OSHA when you need them?

Bill Pattison on 20th October 2011 @ 10:23am

The spar pole was most likely used to "fly" heavy materials to the site. They used this technology before more modern cranes were designed. This was logging technology probably powered by a steam donkey type of set up.

Ranger on 20th October 2011 @ 10:28am

Upon reading a document about the history of the dam, I think this hillside provided raw material to the rock crusher and concrete plant down below.

"Construction of the dam itself required the mixing and pouring of 29,620 cubic yards of concrete in what at the time was a geographically remote mountain canyon. To the good fortune of the Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation, ancient volcanic activity had cached a mountainside of the raw material directly above the dam site. To utilize this material, a huge gravity-fed rock crusher and concrete plant was constructed on the hillside immediately above the dam site, high on the west bank of the river."

l.e. on 22nd October 2011 @ 12:07pm

I wonder if this is the spar pole that we see in the photo?

"Dam construction began with erection of a steam-fired wooden derrick on the
river bank directly above the dam site...."

l.e. on 22nd October 2011 @ 12:10pm

The Enterprise, White Salmon, WA., October 4, 1912, page 1 PROGRESS AT DAM
Concrete Plant On Side Of Mountain Fine Engineering Feat
Interesting, indeed, is the plant on the west bank where the concrete is being made. It required no little engineering skill to drop down and place plant on this deep canyon side tons of machinery. The 18-ton Jeffrey crusher alone required 20 teams to haul it from the station over a difficult trail to the top of the embankment, where it was lowered by cable to its placement. A huge hopper receives the lava rock from the quarry and conveys it to the crusher. Crushed to the size of hard stove coal it drops to another crusher called the sand machine. This grinds it to the required fineness, the resultant sand being far more valuable for concrete than sand of the river beds. Next the sand passes over large screens into a bin, thence down the long iron lined chutes to the concrete mixers, at present located over the edge of the narrow gorge know that as "The Jaws." When the second mixer is installed concrete will be dumped at the rate of 750 cubic yards a day. Over $25,000 of machinery, run by individual motors supplied by the temporary power plant, is planted on the hillside, the very topmost piece being an air compressor,
close to which is the "aeroplane donkey " which operates the scraper bringing down the quarried stone to the crusher.
A stairway of 600 steps leads from the river bed up the face of the bluff to the quarry, out-rivalling the well-known and "dreaded" Columbia bluff stairway to the town of White Salmon......

L.E. on 8th January 2020 @ 10:59am