The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-02-25
BUILD LARGE DAM
 IN IDAHO FORESTS Ten Million Dollars to Be
 Expended PLAN IS VERY UNIQUE Dam Will Be Built Upside Down and After the Stream Is Cleaned
 Will Be Lowered Into
 Place

Spokane, Wash, February 24.-lSpecial) Ten million dollars will be expended on power plants and saw mills in the Lew iston and Clearwater districts of northern Idaho as the resdlt of the adoption by the legislature of an amendment to the law governing dams and reservoirs in the Clearwater river.
 This involves the construction of an im mense dam al Bruce's Eddy, on the north fork of the stream. about two miles above it's mouth, which experts declare will be one of the most costly pieces of engineer ing work yet attempted in the northwest. c. A. Reid of Spokane, who has as his associates a number of capitalists of Tor onta, Ontario, will build the dam at Bruce's Eddy, to cost s35Oo0O. and pow CT plant below the dam, generating min imum of 4000 horsepower and which will cost approximately $5OO,000. These same interests will construct cement plant at Orofino to cost s6o0,OO0. ". c. Weeks. who built the East river pier in New York, will have charge of construction.
 Representatives of the Clearwater Tim her company. of which Thomas J. Hum-
 
 that more than $1, GOO 600 will be expended in the construction of sawmills at Oro- fino, power plant at the mouth of Whis key creek three miles above Orofino and auxiliary plants in the white timber ber.
 The Northern Pacific and the Chicago, Milwaukee and Prget Sound Railway companies announce they will construct their lines into the heart of the timber belt, expecting to secure the vast tonnage that will be developed by the sawmiling interests, and it is given out that the Northern Pacific company will at once complete it's plans for building the Mis- soula-Lewiston cutoff across the Bitter Root mountains, for which the surveys have been made.
 The site at Bruce's Eddy is ideal for the generation of power The north fork of the Clearwater river flows at an average fall of 10 feet to the mile. The width of the river above the dam site is several hundred feet. The water flows due east until it reaches the eddy, then swirls around and flows due south
 At the site of the dam the width of the stream on the surface is but 110 feet. while on bed rock the stream Is but IS feet wide It will be 25 feet high above the pi cociil ouildce Ol tnt TlNeTt dHu dCTOSS the stream on top will be 157 feet. The dam will be 40 feet in width. It will be of the sinking wedge type, with spill way, several hundred efeet in length, to allow the passage of logs uninterrupted to the river below the dam.
 The plan for the construction and set ting of the dam is unique in that it will be constructed bottom side up.
 When the project was under consider ation several years ago engineers had planned to build tunnel around the dam site and divert the north fork through the tunnel, but the cost was so great that the scheme was almost abandoned for building dam, when the services of MT. Weeks were secured and the sinking wedge dam proposed His plan is to coll >struct the dam of concrete with the bot tom side up, laying balanced on the wedged portion, the downstream end of the dam pointing up stream. After the bed of the stream below the dam has been cleaned, the contours of the bed rock worked out and the main dam com pleted, the dam held in position by cables and engines, will be slowly lowered into place. Apertures on the top of the dam will be filled with rock.
 The power plant will be constructed be- low the dam.< For several years work men have been making a wagon. road from the mouth of the stream at Ahsah- ka to the dam site, distance of two miles, Most of it is completed. The road is the best piece of grade in Idaho being hewn out of solid rock along the noun tain side above the river.