The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-03-17
FIRST OF TWO ARTICLES
 Uncle Sam Is Set To Turn On The Juice At Grand Coulee, Mans Biggest Work
BY PETER EDISON NEA Service Staff Writer

Kick Modesty in the seat of the pants. Shove Shame out the win- dow. And open the doors to Brag- gadocio. For the biggest thing on earth is about to get going this month, and it isn't war.
 Take all the people in the United States and put them in a pile. It's bigger than that.
 Take Chmeop's pyramid in Egypt, then take Boulder Dam, and then take another Boulder Dam. It's big ger than all three put together.
 Take the cost of the Panama Canal, add twenty-five million dol lars for luck and you'll come close to its value.
 Take row of Rockefeller Centers three- quarters of mile long and pour two Niagara Falls one on top of the other over the middle. It will be bigger. than that.
 With that fanfare, 1t is now safe to give you the name --- Grand Coulee Dam.
 It's up in northeast Washing ton State. On March 22, the first two generating units of It's power plant will turn electric current into the Bonneville transmission line, juice will start flowing to Spokane, 90 miles away, to the shipyards in Tacoma, where defense vessels are being built, to the Boeing plant in Seattle, 260 miles away, where air. craft are being built.
 Turning on of this current takes place more than a year ahead of schedule, but this is only start. a mere 10000 kilowatts, 27000 horse power.
 When the whole project is com pleted, there will be available a thousand times that - 2700,000 horse power, nearly one-twelfth of the total electrical energy de- veloped in the United States to- day.
 Behind the big dam-12000, 900 barrels of cement, 100000 cu- bic yards of concrete making Q mass 800 feet wide at the base, $50 feet high and 4,3o0 feet or of mile long there will be backed up the big gest artificial lake in the world, l50 miles long, stretching clear to the Canadian border. Drowning you in statistics, this Is enough to give every person in the United States 25,000 gallons of water. to slake the thirst, wash the clothes and dirty dishes, and bathe greater New York for ten years.
 AHEAD OF
 
 All this, too, is just a starter. When the job Is done, Q part of the power will be used to pump a part of the water, by means of the worlds twelve largest pumps to reservoir nearly 300 feet higher than the big dam, and two miles away. There, behind two little dams no bigger than ten-story water will be in- pounded in Q reservoir 27 miles long and covering 43 square miles, to be carried by a system of canals 250 miles long to irri- gate a fertile but now semi-arid are the size of Delaware, l,200 900 acres. This won't be completed for a generation, 25 or 50 years, but 1t is definitely Q part of this biggest pro- gram for the biggest thing of It's kind.
 Building this dam in less than eight years in itself is e marvel. Putting even part of 1t In opera ton a year or more ahead of sch- edule Is @ record.
 Surveyors began in 1883. In De- cember the contract was let for clearing 10000 yards of loose dirt from the dam site, getting down to bedrock. A 32-mile railroad, from the Great Northern's main line, two bridges across the river below the daw, two cities to house the work CTS had to be built.
 Tn July, 1884, q combine of four construction firms, the "MWAK" company, won the contract for building dam base. Contracts for completion of the dam and power houses were let In 1888 to Consoli- dated Builders, Inc, made up of plus the famous Six Com panies that built Boulder Dam, plus General Construction Company of