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The Grand Coulee Dam was proclaimed "the biggest thing on earth". Indeed the statistics of the structure's mechanics, power, and volume are astounding. However, the construction and eventual completion of the dam was a lesson in hyperbole for many reporters, politicians, and locals. The ideology that created the dam was just as adorned with visionary loveliness.
Private enterprise was molded into public works during the New Deal. The 1920s saw the construction of the "Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Bank of Manhattan, 70 Pine Street, the Lincoln-Leveque Tower in Columbus, and the Carew Tower in Cincinnati" (Reisner, 159). The Hoover Dam was completed in 1936. Grand Coulee was completed in 1941 using almost four times as much concrete in its construction. To this day, the Grand Coulee Dam Area gloats the statistics that prove its comparative grandness to Hoover.
Moreover, the Grand Coulee Dam project helped put the nation back to work. The desert land surrounding the dam site was soon transformed into a burgeoning city. Promising thousands of jobs, Grand Coulee was soon experiencing a mass migration of desperate out-of-work men, a second wave of western squatters seeking a promised land. Even women were hired to work. In the beginning of construction the town of Coulee Dam included "2,500 women: prostitutes, bar maids, taxi-dancers, beauty parlor operators, and house-wives" (Lowitt, 166). Then Helen Thomas, who was named "Miss Coulee Dam" in a boosterism feat in the summer of '34, was later was hired as an office secretary. Other women were hired at the mess hall under the idea that "Feeling that the refining influence of the feminine presence will have a salutary effect upon the boys in camp and pep them up somewhat the MWAK Company are [sic] going to give the women a break in securing employment here at the damsite. Here's hoping that whoever does the picking of the pulchritudinous damsels will have more of a penchant for bright eyes and red cheeks than for bright red fingernails" (Pitzer, 111-112).
Bureau of Reclamation engineer Frank Banks was assigned the position of the head construction engineer for the Grand Coulee project. The Great Northern and the Northern Pacific joined forces to bring the railroad to the construction site for the purposes of moving materials. Giant conveyor belts were built to haul materials around the construction site. Finally, the first cofferdams were driven January 1, 1935 to be finished before the spring floods (Pitzer, 108). On September 28, 1933 the Spokesman-Review wrote,
In December 1933 the Bureau began designing and leveling ground for Engineer's Town on the western foot of the dam. This would be the model city of the west. Businesses would have to apply for a spot. On the east bank the MWAK Company established Mason City, the first "all electric city" (Pitzer, 104). The city was a manifestation of the region's history. In the center was Mead Park. Ickes Avenue crossed Roosevelt Avenue, separating north and south dormitories. In late July, 1935 Governor Martin, dressed as an old-fashioned engineer, "stood at the throttle when the 'official first train' pulled out of Odair" (Pitzer, 105). Ceremonies and christenings were frequent and at times, ridiculous. There were celebrations for the first laid concrete. Film crews were assigned to this desert area. Spectator stands were built for tourists and special visitors could ride across the dam itself for a closer look. When the dam was finally completed, it was portrayed as a giant beauty. Women in bathing suits walked fashionably around the dam. A ceremony was held so that jugs of water from every state could be poured over the dam. Arizona sent a jug only half-filled, claiming that California had stolen the other half. Newspapers ran drawings of Great Pyramids in Egypt dwarfed by the great concrete block. Sheep crossing the top of the dam were filmed as an representation of nature and technology being joined in harmony after centuries of battles.
It an appropriate time for celebration not only because the Grand Coulee Dam had been completed; but also because the basin had changed its policies of private enterprise to regional planning. This became a much later version of old western utopias. Finally the desert would bloom and Americans would prosper with electric lights, water, and luscious crops.
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