The Ghost City That Never Was
A century ago, corporate giants promised a $100 million industrial empire at Priest Rapids, envisioning a city of 40,000 where only sagebrush grew.
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.
Under the caption 'Proposed Early Development of Priest Rapids,' the Spokane Spokesman-Review of April 8th detailed a massive project. It proposes to put a dam two miles long across the Columbia River to produce hydro-electric energy. The estimated cost is $100,000,000. The General Electric Company of Schenectady, N.Y., claims the financing is complete. The Washington Irrigation and Development Company, led by Henry J. Pierce, intends to build a 90-foot high dam, creating an industrial city of 40,000 people and irrigating 100,000 acres for everything from cotton to sugar beets. The project is billed as the greatest power site in the U.S. after Niagara.
“A teeming industrial city of perhaps 40,000 persons at Priest rapids.”
This grand industrial vision for Priest Rapids collapsed under the realities of the Great Depression, but the site eventually became home to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Today's residents grapple with the environmental legacy of that 'industrial empire' that replaced the agrarian dream.
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