Priest Rapids Dam License Brings White Bluffs a City Dream
A century ago, boosters dreamed of a massive industrial city on the Columbia, promised by the General Electric Company as a 'second Niagara Falls.'
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The Federal Power Commission has granted a permanent license for the Priest Rapids dam project, a milestone long-awaited by the residents of White Bluffs. The project, led by the Washington Irrigation Development Company—a holding company for the General Electric Company—is set to become the largest hydroelectric facility in America, save for Niagara Falls. Beyond generating 400,000 horsepower, the company intends to build a model industrial city on the sagebrush plains to house 50,000 people, manufacturing aluminum, nitrates, and fertilizers. While local residents were cautiously optimistic about the prospect of cheaper irrigation water and a permanent settlement, the scope of the $100,000,000 investment promised to transform the region into a global manufacturing hub.
“All things come to those who wait, and while some of us have sprouted gray whiskers in the interim, that Priest Rapids dam today looks more like reality to the old timers than it ever has before.”
The 'industrial city' of 50,000 never materialized; instead, the area became the site of the Hanford Site, which altered the course of history in a way far more destructive than the original proposal. Today, the landscape is defined by the legacy of atomic production and the ongoing cleanup of those very lands that once dreamed of being a manufacturing utopia.
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