The Railroads Are Coming for Your River: Milwaukee Road’s Secret Land Grab
Agents of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad are quietly buying up ranches along the Columbia below Priest Rapids, signaling a massive hydroelectric and irrigation project that will reshape the region's power grid.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
It is thought the Railroad Company is Getting Ready To Construct Priest Rapids Dam.
Agents, supposedly of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad are busily engaged in purchasing lands on both sides of the Columbia river below Priest Rapids, having in view the construction of a dam across the river about 15 miles below Beverly, says the Wenatchee World.
The agents have been in the field about six weeks, according to report, and already have taken options on a number of ranches, in some cases at prices very advantageous to the owners.
Information is to the effect that the railroad is promoting the dam project principally for the purpose of securing power to electrify its lines in that section, but with the enormous amount of power that could be developed at that point it is purposed to use it for irrigation also.
It has been known for a year or more that the Milwaukee was planning a dam somewhere below Priest Rapids, but permission of the war department has been withheld until the road could show that the building of the structure would not interfere with the rights of land owners along the river by flooding their property with back water. According to reports received from White Bluffs and Hanford yesterday the corporation has so far made headway in its acquisition of land that might be damaged that it is in a position to apply with some degree of assurance for permission of the government to construct the dam. The power plant will be erected so soon as that permission is granted according to statements of persons living there.
This 1914 report captures the exact moment when private railroads began transitioning from mere transporters of goods to generators of energy, a shift that laid the groundwork for today's massive federal hydroelectric dams like Chief Joseph and Wanapum. The tension between corporate power development and local landowner rights over flooding remains a central conflict in Columbia River management.
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