Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1942-11-05
Harvesting River
n Tremendous Job


states the past several months.
Together with sending greetings
to her friends in Askov, she tells
OF reclamation work in the Green
mountain area of the Colorado
river where large earth dam
was being constructed.
Her interesting letter follows:
A year ago, while in Wyoming,
had hoped to visit also with my
youngest brother who 1 had not seen
since he was IL years old. But he
was not in the oil fields or in the
vicinity of Casper, Wyo., where he
had worked for several years on
large reservoir as welder l finally
got his address, but he being in Colo
RADIO and going back to Grand
Forks, N. D., we did not meet until
this summer when I visited him and
his wife who lived and worked in
the Green Mountain area on a great
dam on the Colorado river
Begun Four Years Ago.
This work was started four years
| ago, when tunnel was cut to divert
the water of the river through the
mountain so that it would be used for
making electricity, as well as stored
for irrigation. A tunnel, when it is
blasted or bored, is blown full of
| cement, all cracks and crevices must
be filled completely and to a great
70 ba HI -
weather conditions, or water or jar
ring. When one first looks at the
project, it seems incredible that hum
dreds of men have worked here for
so many months.
But when my brother told me
some of the history of the work, it
became evident that the Danish pro-
verb spoke truth: "Show not a fool
half-fnished work" So l let him tell
me as much as he knew and as there
was time for, for the time was linn
tied in this visit, three days and four
nights.
He worked from a. m. to 7 %. m.
every day of the week with a half
hour noon, so we dare not talk half
| the night as often has been done.
All night long another shift worked
on as hard as the day shift. There
were floodlights to allow full visibil-
ity for the men with the cranes which
excavated the dirt and stones, the
flutes" which haul it to the place
where it was dumped, sifted and
picked up by other jutes down below,
carried to the dam, unloaded, raked
distributed and rolled, which packs it.
A Dirt Dam.
This was dirt dam, the center
of which was composed of a great
deal of rock and heavy clay which
will be impervious to water This
is covered with sandy clay which
allows water to go through to the
core, but never to wash away this
clay from among the boulders and
rocks. I wish 1 could remember the
width of it at the bottom and the
width of it at the top when it will
be finished. l know there are greater
ones being built than this reservoir,
but I'll let others tell of them. The
spillway, which allows the river to
flow on after the reservoir is once
filled with the water of the spring
| thaws, was just completed. 1t was
poured just before I came. Every
reservoir has to have these spill
ways.
In Wyoming thousands are being
h,,i1 Lo1 H.
the watershed and so control flood
ing and conserve moisture for the
arid lands; where rains are not as
PLENTIFUL as we have in Minnesota,
the land of ten thousand lakes. I
would like to call this Wyoming land
and the Rocky Mountain region the
land of thousand cracks. Those
cracks, assures or canyons came to
be there when the earth shrank and
so showed up the surface, thereby
causing mountain ridge to come
into being, as well as the creek ifs
sured land of the northwest. The
trees will in time cover the plains
who knows. The grasses were not
killed by the drouths, but the cactus
throve especially on the lighter soils,
and cattle and sheep dislike their
presence.
Pardon me for losing my story of
the Colorado river project to Wyo-
ming. 1t was a great experience.
New Homes Being Built.
The people working on the dam
were mostly family men. Many lived
in trailer houses and many in shacks.
imagine much like all towns have
begun all over this continent, wheth-
er they be in farming, industry or
mining areas. Barracks were put up
by the company in the very river
bed where "the silvery Colorado
wends its way" for many thousands of
years, served as a place to eat and
sleep for the single men. All this
will be taken down and moved as
soon as the job is finished, for mil
lions of gallons of water will cover
up the place where it now stands.
Electricity and water is provided as
well as a makeshift sewage system