Birth of the dams

Photo courtesy of the Franklin County Historical Society

Ice Harbor Dam was dedicated on May 9, 1962, as the Mid-Columbia cheered, bands played and priests prayed for the first power-producing lump of concrete in the lower Snake River.

Fanfare welcomed first dam

While everyone else in the Tri-Cities gathered to cheer the official opening of Ice Harbor Dam, David Gallant just worried about the height of the lectern.

That was his job on May 9, 1962, a day that will live long in the memory of the Tri-Cities as the first step in taming the lower Snake River.

Coming down the line were three more cookie-cutter dams that would create a navigable river to Lewiston, 140 miles away.

Ice Harbor already had sparked a construction boom and it promised more jobs on large-scale irrigated farms watered from the resulting reservoir.

But more than that, it was a sign of progress.

"Here in the early years of the Atomic Era, the people of the United States exhibit faith in the future by placing the first concrete of a great dam to provide the benefits of peaceful living for the people of our nation," said the proclamation that was buried in a time capsule when the dam's first concrete was poured.

Thirty-eight years after the dedication ceremony, Gallant's memories are mostly of the dominant figure - Vice President Lyndon Johnson. He was a big man who required special arrangements on the podium.

"The word came down from someplace that the lectern must be so many inches tall," said Gallant, 83, a former Pasco businessman.

Johnson spoke that afternoon - a perfect spring day in the Tri-Cities - after a seemingly endless string of high school bands, boat parades, bugle corps, sky divers, fighter planes and local celebrities had their moments in the sun. School was canceled in Pasco and shortened in most other nearby districts.

It was a day for hats and banners and flags.

"It was a day of excitement because it was something that everybody was proud of," said Ed Ray, a Pasco insurance company owner and longtime civic booster. "It was all pluses and no minuses. Now you have the minuses coming in, but at that time it was all pluses. I can't remember anybody being against it."

In fact, in the 1950s, there were plenty of state fish officials who were opposed to the "fish-killing dam" at Ice Harbor, according to a Corps history of the lower Snake River. But by the time the dam was dedicated, the legislative battles had faded and the future looked bright for the Tri-Cities.

"It was a great occasion," said Walt Grisham, 78, a retired Pasco school teacher whose daughter was one of the many schoolgirls employed serving food to the 750 lunch guests in the Pasco High School gym.

Among the dignitaries were Washington Gov. Albert Rosellini and U.S. Sen. Warren Magnuson, who was widely credited with getting money from Congress for Ice Harbor.

Northwest American Indian tribes erected a teepee village near the dam and sent several representatives to the ceremony, including Miss Indian America who presented Johnson with a tribal blanket.

As Pasco Chamber of Commerce president, Ray was in charge of the dedication ceremony and stood behind Johnson on stage. He still has the photo hanging in his home office. "I remember shaking hands with him and his hands were about three times as big as mine," Ray said.

After the luncheon, Johnson was part of a motorcade through Pasco to Ice Harbor. Along the way, nuns at St. Patrick's School had arranged for him to stop and talk to the kids.

"Lyndon got out of the car and waded into the playground and ... was just engulfed by children," recalled Gallant. "A lot of them remembered that he patted them on the head."