Palatka daily news. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1919-1994, 1922-11-05
Dam Construction
Now Being Pushed
on Muscle Shoals

Florence, Ala, Nov. 1.-The roar of
construction work on the great Will
son dam at Muscle Shoals is again
sounding through the valleys and over
the hills along the Tennessee river.
The federal government has stepped
. in to rescue from possible decay the
spectacular wartime nitrate and
power projects, which sprang up al
most overnight, involved in the bull
ding of what will be the worlds larg-
est water power dam.
United States army engineers, who
have just been furnished with S8,0OO,-
900 in congressional appropriations,
are once more proceeding with the
work of Harvesting the mighty wa
tiers of the Tennessee under a gov
eminent program which provides for
the completion of the Wilson DAM.
the installation of machinery, and the
furnishing of electrical "juice" by the
late winter of 1925 or the early spring
of 1926.
This program is so definite that
the Army Appropriation bill to be in
troduced in congress December is
to contain an item making available
$7,5OO,OC0 additional for the work for
the fiscal year 1924. They will
require but$7, 100000 more after that
for the following fiscal year, before
they have finished job at the dam
and power house, and be ready to turn
the switches that send out the cleo
trical current.
The music of the noisy rock-crush-
ers, the toot-toot of the locomotives
hauling sand and gravel, and the
pleasant control-bells of the boats
towing barges in the river, are max
ing harmony Of peace-time efficien-
cy, under which the army dam build
ers expect to carry out their program
of finished job not later than the
spring of 1926 with hardly ever more
men at work at one time than 1000
to do the work which 1000 at time
we're required 70 do under war time
conditions.
Sheffield, Tuscumbia, and Florence
had large population 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 chance to
rest. Today, Sheffield is presumed
to have a population of about 5000.
During the war, Florence housed 25,-
900 people. Today this city houses
about $4,000. Tuscumbia has been
reduced accordingly in size In war
days the government had a payroll of
$4,000 men housed in and around
these three cities But, here today,
there is no great influx of people be-
cause of the building of the dam, nor
will there be on account of that con-
struction work.
The men at work today are being
paid at the base rate of $3.50 per day
but, as this is government payroll,
and congress has granted a bonus to !
government workers, they actually
receive about $500 per man per day
average. This means an expendi-
ture of about $4,000 per day for la
Dor. But cemen, lumber, coal, REIN
forcing steel, and other materials are
being purchased, eating into the ap-
preparations.
All the big machinery for the cleo
trica1 power installations was bought
long ago. This big machinery, tech
nically described as four units, each
consisting of 10000 horse power tur-
bines, capable of generating all to-
gether 100000 horsepower, is on the
ground, ready to be installed. So
far as construction machinery is con-
cerned, there is equipment of that
character on the dam works which
has been inventoried at $5,OOOOOO,
and therefore, nothing in that line
with the one exception of a tow-boat
has been needed, and that has just
been bought.
Colonel W. ]. Barden, Corps of
engineers, United States army, is in