East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1910-11-19

The Furnish-Coe dam across the
Umatilla river at Coe station, the Sec
ond largest project Of its kind in the
state Is completed and will be turned
over to the Furnish-Coe company by
the contractors within a day or two.
The work of filling the great reser-
voir formed by the construction of the
dam will be started upon the arrival
OF the flood season. The water thus
stored will be used during the sum-
mer months in irrigating the 10000
acres OF land contained in the Fur
nish-Coe project in the west end OF
the county and with Stanfield as the
project town.
The last Of the dirt work on the
dam was completed yesterday and
one of the steam shovels employed
there for the past several months is
now being prepared for shipment to
some other point. The other one will
be used for another day or two In
rounding up the work. The only 9TH
er work remaining to be done is the
completion Of the rip-rap on the face
Of the dam and the concrete on the
sides OF the spillway, which has been
excavated to the solid rock.
The dam is 100 feet long, is fifty
feet high. 22O feet wide at its base and
20 feet wide at the top. A concrete
core extends from bank to bank and
from its bedrock foundation to with
in five feet of the top Of the dam.
Though 1t extends across the Una
tilla river and will hold the flood wa
ters Of that stream until they form
a lake nearly mile wide and nearly
two miles long, the water will never
be permitted to flow over its top
and the normal flow Of the river will
never be shut off. either summer or
winter. The spillway which has been
constructed to carry off the surplus
water is as large as the original chan
mel Of the river and will therefore be
sufficient in size to take care OF the
largest floods the river has ever seen.
The sides Of this spillway are Of con-
crete to prevent their cutting away
the bank on either side.
Three hundred acres of land. in
cluding one OF the oldest and best
fruit and alfalfa farms along the river
will be flooded by the water in the
reservoir which will extend UP around
the famous Horseshoe curve for a
distance OF a mile and three-quarters.
In its widest place the artificial lake
will be three-fourths of a mile in
width.
The building of this dam marks
the completion Of project inaugur-
ated several years ago by w. J. Fur
nish, the we'll known Oregon banker
and politician, who formerly lived in
this city. but now resides in Port
land. He is a pioneer in the work of
reclaiming the arid lands of the west
ern part of Umatilla county on a
large scale. Disregarding the scoff-
ing OF his friends and foes he spent
many thousands Of dollars in the con-
struction of ditch above Echo to be-
low Stanfield. His critics continued
to laugh at him until the day the va
ter was turned into the ditch and even
during the succeeding long weeks
when the water was gradually worked
down along the long canal. He DEM
onstrated, however, even to the sat
isfaction of the scoffers that a canal
could be dug that would carry water
through the sand.
This canal, completed four years
ago. supplied water for winter irriga-
ton only. This was sufficient for the
growing of alfalfa but 1t was not suf-
ficient for the more intensified farm
Ing to which other irrigated sections
are being subjected, so Furnish con-
ceived the idea of building a dam
across the Umatilla river, storing Its