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History, although sometimes confused with fact, is simply another word for memory. In recent times, history has begun to take an inventory of itself and found politics within itself. While even the best historians attempt to control the past in a container of separation, each writer is influenced by the time in which he or she is writing and the paradigms, values, and events of that time. Even within this essay there are several different opinions of history. For Native Americans, their stories of Coyote and other Animals People are histories of their nations. However, the first Americans who heard them often named their history myth or superstition. The American history has been indelibly marked by written histories such as the Lewis and Clark Journals or Jeffersonian ideology. Even maps have politics in what they include and exclude, spatial arrangement, and naming. A recent phenomenon of histories in America is an attempt to include those who groups of people or events are often excluded from the ruling history. These groups often include minority groups such as women, African Americans, or Native Americans. Often, too, folk life and popular culture becomes part of a history that once only included politics and aristocracy. Events in natural history such as the spread of disease or the invention of DDT are also new histories. So, with that said, this essay will be on the historicizing of the Grand Coulee Dam.
The histories created within the Grand Coulee Dam region are the primary focus. The town of Grand Coulee today is little more than a tourist attraction. Moreover, it is only a tourist attraction for those who remember the construction of Grand Coulee Dam or are part of its environmental debate, for the dam itself is no longer a part of American popular culture. It has recessed into the past. Aligned almost exactly between Spokane and Seattle, the Columbia Basin receives little attention in the American mind. However, in Grand Coulee, the memory of the place is everything. Besides, who can ignore the mammoth structure in the center of the town?
The Grand Coulee Dam area is the locus of five counties: Douglas, Grant, Lincoln, Adams, and Franklin. For simple county names they include some hard-hitting historical figures. The Columbia River has been renamed by the fearless Captain Cook. The parts of the river have been subdivided into man-made lakes, each named for a key player in the construction of the dams. The dams, too, have been named with distinction. Perhaps the most poignant is Chief Joseph Dam named after the heroic leader of the Nez Perce in the 19th century. During his life he continually spoke outraged at the injustices of the United States. Surely he would find his name on the face of the US Army Corps of Engineer's dam a strange memorial. To the United States popular mind, Chief Joseph became a hero in his surrender, maybe in his values, probably not in his fight.
Similarly, within the town of Grand Coulee have been constructed artifacts of memorial and memory. The bust of FDR overlooks the lake named after him. It is a proud bust for a man who could not stand on his own, but helped the nation get back on steady legs. The inscription reads: "To Franklin Delano Roosevelt, thirty-first President of the United States, whose vision and unswerving devotio to the cause of conservation and development of natural resources of the west for national security and the permanent enrichment of the American people, brought about the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam, this reservoir is dedicated". The gentle juxtaposition of "conservation" and "development" is interesting in that the Grand Coulee Dam is one of the largest salmon killers in America. Also, the forced words "permanent enrichment" memorialize Roosevelt not for the moment, but for eternity.
On the downstream eastern bank of the Grand Coulee Dam is a statue of a man, sitting on a bench, playing his guitar for two young children. It is named "After Work", as if to symbolize a leisure activity of the young workers of the dam construction. However, the presence of B Street, a street of bars and brothels in the 1930s, has not yet been forgotten. The image of the man singing and playing the acoustic guitar plays on the idealized image of the folkie, used once before by the Bonneville Power Administration in 1941. The evocation of Woody as the muse is not missed. The image of Woody Guthrie writing songs about the Columbia River is indeed a lovely one. However, he was only hired for thirty days and spent most of his time in Portland, Oregon. The children on the bench are anachronistic. Most of the people who migrated to Grand Coulee in the Thirties were single men. Their families were far away expecting checks. This statue is almost a completely created memory.
In the Visitor's Center, a tourist will come across a brochure called "The Forgotten Era", meaning the time of the blossoming population in Grand Coulee Dam. The name of the brochure itself is peculiar, as the era of construction seems to be the most living period of the region. The brochure delineates a self-guided walking tour of Engineer's Town and Coulee Dam to have a movement-oriented reminder of the construction period. Stops include the old dormitories for workers, a train tunnel never used due to a faulty trestle, the Post Office, and the City Hall. Any local will inform the tourist that "although it's not well known" there was an underground tunnel connecting the men and women's dorms. Around the Fourth of July festival, grassroots organizations set up tables within this area to explain "the truth" about the Grand Coulee Dam. Their histories included stories of workers buried in concrete during construction. Although no workers were actually drowned in concrete baths, for the concrete blocks were formed too small to contain a person; their versions of this history is an interesting juxtaposition to this one-sided pride of the construction era.
In Coulee Dam, across the street from the Colville Confederated Tribes Museum is an area called Presidential Plaza dedicated to President Roosevelt in 1996. Complete with a flagpole, it stands as a strange monument among so many. Its location is also across the street from the local casino. About one mile from the US Bureau of Reclamation's Visitor Center, the Plaza marks the entrance to another Visitor's Center. Inside a tourist can purchase a book entitled Pioneers to Power compiled by a group of local historians. It contains a self-made history of Grand Coulee Dam: anecdotes by older residents about the hardships of pioneer life, breaking the western ground, and finally, building Grand Coulee Dam.
These are the histories created by the region. Many of them portray themselves as typical westerners, outsiders, pioneers, simple peoples, heroes, cowboys, or visionaries. Unfortunately, the town did not prosper as a planned community as was intended. The farmers remain on government subsidy. The area still thirsts for the utopian vision of a new Eden. It was once heralded and now forgotten. The area is poor in wealth, low in population, and lacking all signs of prosperity. Not much has changed, aside from a major drop in population and the construction of monuments and statues. Main Street has a yellow flashing light, a Safeway, a hardware store, and a few burger joints. The four counties surrounding Grand Coulee Dam are a living museum. One can hardly hear the city breathing. It is frozen in time, physically, geographically, and ideologically.
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