THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST: Land of the Big Blue River

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In 174 years as a nation, the U.S. has produced few such spectacles as the colossal birth throes of the Grand Coulee Dam. Its grey and gargantuan bulk was eight years (1933-41) abuilding, and in that time armies of sightseers wended their way into a scarred and desolate canyon of the Columbia River, 150 airline miles east of Seattle, to goggle at the horrid obstetrics.

Staring at the neon-lit construction camps and the jungles of trestles, cranes and forms that littered the dusty valley, many a tourist decided he was witnessing the most gigantic boondoggle since the pyramids.

It was best seen after dark when great batteries of floodlights poured a spurious noontide over the rising, mile-long ramparts of fresh concrete. Listening to the clang and roar of machinery out in the blazing night, skeptics railed at the whole fantastic scene. Many were convinced that there would be small use for the dam's electricity, that only one generator —a little one—would be installed, and that the vast pile would be left, peeping away to itself down through the ages, like a stranded whale with a peanut whistle in its nose.

But the skeptics were yelling up the wrong penstock. By this week, as President Truman headed west to dedicate Grand Coulee and the Columbia Basin project, the dam had long since become the world's greatest single source of electricity. When the President pushes a ceremonial button to start its newest generator (13th of 18 to be installed), Grand Coulee will be producing 1,404,000 kilowatts—enough to supply both Cleveland and Cincinnati with all their power. Yet this amazing torrent of energy will not satisfy the insatiable demand.

Out of the Wilderness. World War II tripped off the biggest influx of newcomers in the Northwest's history; it had gained a million and a half people. The population of Washington jumped from 1,700,000 to 2,500,000 between 1940 and 1950, Oregon from 1,000,000 to 1,600,000. For the first time, the Northwest, risen from the raw wilderness in little more than a century, seemed to be within range of becoming an industrial dominion, rather than a mere outpost of Eastern manufacturing and finance.

Last week, as spring melted the high snows of the Cascade and Olympic mountains, warmed Idaho's forests of ponderosa pine and turned Oregon's rain-sprinkled coastal valleys a lush and tender green, the Northwest pulsed with prosperity and hope. Its clean and airy cities reflected neither the gaudiness nor the fevered excitement which westward migration had given Southern California, but the signs of expansion and new enterprise were everywhere.

Richland, a complete new town of 24,000, had sprung up on the desert at Washington's Hanford plutonium works, and two others—Kennewick and Pasco—had been virtually reborn as a result. Years of steady construction had ringed and dotted Seattle (pop. 525,000), Spokane (pop. 180,000), Portland (pop. 436,000) and dozens of other smaller towns with new stores, factories, and miles of freshly painted houses. The poorest of the houses boasted green lawns and flowers.