Pioneering Power to the West
The development of the irrigation-based agricultural industry in the
western U.S., in many ways, had its beginnnings in Southern Idaho. The
Minidoka Project consists of a dam, a 16,00 kW power plant and a
125,000-acre irrigation system. Desert lands were opened for
settlement in early 1904. Originally, families filed on 160-acre parcels,
which were later reduced to 40-60 acres per person. Farmers rushed in
to file claims on lands wherever work on new irrigation projects was
proposed.
The Minidoka Dam site was first surveyed in 1881 by private
individualsm but without funding the project collapsed. In 1800, the Idaho
State Reclamation Office also surveyed the site. Still without funding, the
project stalled. The Reclamation Act, signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt, on June 17, 1902, provided mechanism for
money flowing into the government from the sale of public lands to be
funneled into reclamation projects, by which the land could be made
productive. The Minidoka Project was the second project established under the Act.
Work on the Dam began in late 1903 and was officially recognized by the Secretary of the Interior on April 23, 1904.
The rock and earth-fill dam, constructed at a cost of $675,000, is 86 feet high and 4,475
feet long featuring a 2,400-foot long concrete spillway, The accompanying power
plant was built primarily to provide power to pump water to the 48,00 acre South
Side Pumping Division canal system.
The power plant was completed in 1913 at a cost of $472,000. Originally, it had
five turbines, with a sixth added in 1927 and a seventh in 1942. Excess power was
made available to the public at affordable rates. This beneficial use of power was
used by Nebraska Senator George Norris as justificdation for the creation of the
nationwide Rural Electification Administration (REA). Thanks primarily to the
establishment of the REA, the Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams were built largely
to help electrify rural areas of the Northwest.
The City of Rupert had electic streetlights in 1911, and the New Rupert High
School, completed in 1913, was the first all-electric public building in the nation.
[Picture Captions]
Minidoka Dam and Spillway
Turbines and Controls in the Minidoka Powerhouse
