Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-11-22
ROAR Of MACHINERY
HERALDS OPENING
Of WILSON PROJECT
Army Engineers Prepare Pro-
gram Calling for Power in
Winter of 1925,
Correspondence of

Florence, Ala.,-(COrreSpondence of
the Associated Press. 1.-The roar of
construction work on the great Wilson
dam at Muscle Shoals is again sound
ing through the valleys and over the
NILS along the Tennessee river. The
federal government has stepped in to
rescue from possible decay the spec
tacular wartime nitrate and power
projects, which sprang up almost ov-
ernght, involved in the building of
what will be the worlds largest wa
ter power dam.
United States army engineers, who
have just been furnished with $780,
900 in congressional appropriations,
are once more proceeding with the
work OF Harvesting the mighty waters
OF the Tennessee under a government
program which provides for the com
pletion of the Wilson dam, the install
lation of machinery, and the furnish
ing of electrical Juice" by the late win
ter of 1925 Or the early spring of y
Program Definite
This program is so define that the
army appropriation bill to be intro
duced i'll congress December 4 is to
contain an item making available 81
800, 900 additional for the work for
the fiscal year 1924. They will re-
quire but $I,400,OO0 more after that,
for the following fiscal year, before
they have q finished job at the dam
and power house, and be ready to turn
the switches that send out the cleo
trical current.
The army engineer dam builders do
no vex themselves with the question
of what is to become of the electrical
energy to be harnessed from the wa
tiers of the Tennessee, sometimes
swollen, angry and turbid. To the
army engineer dam builder it makes
no difference whether nitrates are
made here; whether fertilizer is made
here; whether the Tennessee river is
to move the street ears in distant New
Orleans; whether it drains the swamps
of Florida with cheap power. he does
not concern himself with the question
Of whether a woman with an tp-to-
date electric hair curling iron IN Mo-
bile is TO benefit, nor whether the
farmer in Mississippi, Tennessee and
Alabama is to light his premises, pump
his water. or drive his machinery with
the electrical energy which is TO
come from the Harvesting of the wa
tiers now to be brought under the
guiding hand of man. Questions such
as whether Chattanooga, Memphis.
Pensacola, or other communities are
to use the electrical energy from the
Tennessee finally for cheap power for
manufacturing purposes are questions
which. give the army engineer dam
builder 40 concern whatever.
Conflict Settled
All these army dam builders have
known or cared is that they have been
halted III their work since April 10,
1921. by lack of money, when the dam
was one-third completed, at which time
the air began 10 be filled with the roar
not of dam building. but OF who should
finally use the dam.
The armistice had come, Appro-
nriations had dribbled for a while. then
completely stopped. Armed sentries
faded from the picture of the great
work. The dam builders were oblig-
ed to turn their backs on their war
time picture of furnishing nitrate for
explosives for the army in France by
means of the water power of the Ten
nessee, which had called into being the
plans for the dam. For a time it
seemed as if the great dam were
asleep.
But now an awakening has ONE in
these early days of October. and at
the hands of the same men, the army
engineers. Their picture now is n
of peace, with about LOO men actu-
ally at work on the dam today, soon
1000 to be swarning over the works,
and the call going out for a small
group of able assistant civilian engi-
neers.
The music of the noisy rock crush
ers, the toot-toot of the locomotives
hauling sand and gravel. and the pleas
ant control bells of the boats towing
barges in the river, are naming a har-
mony of peace time efficiency, under
which the army dam builders expect
to carry out their program of a finish
ed Job not later than the spring or
1926 with hardly ever more men at
work Mt one time than 1000 10 do the
work which 1000 at a time were re-
onired to do under war time condl-
tons.
Drifting Population
Sheffield, Tuscumbia, and Florence
had large populations for cities like
these during the war. Sheffield alone
had 10000 residents while the nitrate
plants were being built. Men slept
in tents in the city streets and were
glad of any sort of Il chance to rest.
Today, Sheffield Is presumed 10 nave d
population of about 5000. During the
war. Florence housed $4,000 neopie.
Today this city houses about 10000
Tuscumbia has been reduced accord
ingly in size. In war days, the govern
ment had q payroll of $4,000 men
housed in and around these three cities.
But here today there is no great influx
of people because of the building of the
dam. nor will there be on account OF
that construction work.
The men ut work today are being
paid at the base rate of $3.50 per day,
but. as this is a government payroll,
and congress has granted a bonus to
government workers they actually re-
ceive about $500 per man per day
This means an expenditure
OF about $1,000 per day for labor.
But cement, lumber. coal, reinforcing
steel and other materials are being
purchased, eating into the appropria-
tons.
All the big machinery for the cleo
trical power installations was bought
long ago. This big machinery, techni-