Lake Roosevelt Administrative History

Old Kettle Falls

Much of the old townsite of Kettle Falls lies above water on LARO land. The 1948 Master Plan mentioned that the existing power lines to the former town could provide service to a Park Service development on the old townsite. In 1953, LARO staff asked for a study on using paved roads at the townsite for the proposed campground circulation system. A group camping area known as Locust Grove was developed on the site of the former town by the 1970s. It was acknowledged in 1979 that this was damaging historic resources, including concrete sidewalks and steps, shrubs and perennial flowers, and building foundations. [103]

In 1979, LARO decided to establish a 1.5-mile interpretive trail to provide a pedestrian route between the Kettle Falls campground and the swimming beach. The 1975 Interpretive Prospectus mentioned, "This would make for some whimsical interpretation, which would be totally unexpected by people using the trail." The 1980 Historic Resource Study of the NRA recommended more interpretation of the town, the reservoir clearing project, and the construction of Grand Coulee Dam. By 1983, park staff realized that this area was better suited to interpretive than overnight use, and the park proposed relocating the group camping and constructing an interpretive wayside exhibit at the townsite. A determination of eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places was needed before planning could continue, however, and this has not yet been accomplished. Currently, two routed wooden signs interpret the area. [104]

The Ice Age Floods and Dry Falls State Park

The story of the Ice Age Floods is dramatic, and it contains elements that are closely related to Grand Coulee Dam and the Lake Roosevelt area. Since the 1930s, Park Service personnel have debated whether or not it is an appropriate story to be told at LARO.

During the Ice Age, a southern lobe of the northern glacial sheet repeatedly formed an ice dam that created Glacial Lake Missoula in western Montana and northern Idaho. Each time the ice dam broke, floods of water and ice traveled over four hundred miles, carving landforms as they went. Walls of water hundreds of feet high flowed west across Washington, sweeping over thousands of square miles. These were the largest scientifically documented floods in North America. The fifty-mile-long Grand Coulee, south of today's Grand Coulee Dam, is a huge channel with high vertical walls shaped by these rushing waters. The upper and lower coulees are separated by an ancient waterfall known as Dry Falls that had a drop of more than 400 feet over a crest three to four miles long. When the ice receded, the river returned to its original channel, leaving the Grand Coulee high and dry. Other landforms created by the "Ice Age Floods" along their path from western Montana to the Pacific Ocean include glacial erratics, ripple marks, potholes, and gravel bars. [106]

J Harlen Bretz, a university geology professor, first proposed this theory of repeated cataclysmic floods in the 1920s. He then pieced together field data over the next forty years, and his theory was generally accepted in the 1940s. Bretz' theory was affirmed by aerial photographs of the region taken during the 1950s as part of the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project; the photographs allowed the Ice Age Floods features to be viewed on a more comprehensible scale. [107]

Dry Falls was established as a state park in 1922. By the 1930s, a caretaker gave daily lectures during the summers, and trails led visitors to points of interest. The Park Service disapproved the idea of its becoming a national park in 1933. In 1938, however, a Park Service team visiting the area recommended that it could become a national monument because of its scientific and educational values. Earl Trager, Park Service Chief, Naturalist Division, recommended that the Park Service consider the recreation potential of the reservoir to be formed behind Grand Coulee Dam and the proposed equalizing reservoir (Banks Lake), and that a national monument be established to include Dry Falls and other geologic features to the south. [108]

Once again, the area was not formally recommended as a national monument, this time because of the "water development potentialities." When the Park Service took over management of Lake Roosevelt, however, the agency expected that Banks Lake in the Grand Coulee — but not Dry Falls — would eventually become part of the recreation area. [109]

Several Park Service specialists who visited the Lake Roosevelt area in the 1940s continued to emphasize the national significance of Dry Falls. For example, Regional Geologist J. Volney Lewis suggested that Reclamation and the Park Service collaborate in telling the story of the dam and the geologic setting (the Ice Age Floods) and that the Park Service and Washington state cooperate in a roadside exhibit at Dry Falls State Park. U.S. Geological Survey geologist Fred Jones recommended in 1950 that the Upper Grand Coulee be included within LARO, with the best location for a museum on the geology of the area overlooking Dry Falls. [110]

Dry Falls finally achieved national recognition under a program established in 1962. The National Natural Landmarks Program serves as a way to recognize and preserve natural sites of outstanding scientific importance. Each region prepared reports on proposed sites, and local personnel did field studies and evaluated the sites. Paul McCrary, LARO's Chief Park Naturalist, evaluated and recommended Grand Coulee for designation as a National Natural Landmark, and it was registered in 1966. The LARO Superintendent subsequently was responsible for annual review visits to this site and to other nearby Natural Landmarks. [111]

LARO Superintendent David Richie, however, expressed his concern about appropriate development of the Grand Coulee, writing in 1969:

The State has done a nice job at Dry Falls, but nearby Sun Lakes State Park is a blot on the landscape and they are planning a similar development at Steamboat Rock in the upper Coulee. . . . I should think it would be possible to mobilize support for preservation and sensitive development of the Grand Coulee if this were approached in the right way. I have made a few overtures to individuals I thought would be sympathetic but have not made any discernible progress. As an official representative of the National Park Service, I feel somewhat limited in the amount of promoting I can do. [112]

The state built a new interpretive center at Dry Falls in the 1960s. LARO determined not to duplicate the state's efforts by telling the story of the Ice Age Floods at Park Service facilities and to concentrate instead on the Columbia River above the dam. In 1987, however, LARO Interpreter Dan Hand organized a field trip with Reclamation officials and a newspaper reporter to visit some of the flood-related sites, and the resulting newspaper articles popularized the story locally. This trip made Superintendent Gary Kuiper enthusiastic about the idea of having LARO be involved with the Grand Coulee (and the other National Natural Landmarks) more than just conducting the annual reviews. [113]

Vista house overlooking Dry Falls. Photo courtesy of Spokesman-Review archives.

The arrival of Dan Brown at LARO in April 1988 as Interpretive Specialist (later Chief of Interpretation) added new impetus to the park's involvement in telling the story of the Ice Age Floods. Brown was "pretty amazed" by the dramatic story and felt it deserved more interpretation within the national recreation area. In 1989, at the urging of Superintendent Kuiper, the park hosted its first field seminar. The subject was glaciation and ice-age flooding. As Brown gathered information on the geologic story, he became more and more excited about the possibilities, and with Kuiper's support he began to find ways to tell the story to the public. [115]

LARO hired a photographer to shoot photos of Ice Age Floods landforms in Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. The resulting 3,600 slides arrived at park headquarters in the fall of 1991. Kuiper asked Brown to give a slide program the following day to the Audubon Society. He then arranged for Brown to give a program at the Regional Superintendents Conference in November; Brown hustled to assemble a good thirty-minute program in just a few weeks. He eventually presented a slightly refined version of this program over one hundred times, in the four states affected by the floods, over the next year or two; in all, the program was shown nearly four hundred times, both as campfire programs and off-site. These shows were extremely popular; at one program at the Mountain Gear store in Spokane, the organizers had to lock the doors to keep people out once the room had filled to capacity. Requests for programs soon had to be denied, though, because of other demands on staff time. At Kuiper's urging, Brown worked with Washington State University in 1993 to develop a 13.5-minute video version of the program, complete with computer animation. This video quickly became the top-selling item at LARO in terms of dollars. It won two national awards in 1994. [116]

Meanwhile, both the Park Service, on the regional and national level, and the National Parks and Conservation Association had become quite interested in the Ice Age Floods story. In 1990, the Regional Office made the study of a potential new area — the Ice Age Floods National Reserve - its top legislative priority. One of the four key sites would be the Grand Coulee. The entire national reserve or monument would include resources spread across four states and managed by many different entities. The purpose of linking the various landforms created by the floods would be to develop a coordinated strategy for interpretation, management, and protection of far-flung but related sites, much as was already being done at Nez Perce National Historical Park. LARO actively supported this effort by loaning books on the subject to supportive groups and individuals and the state delegation and by establishing contacts with other agencies. The issue of new parks was a primary topic at the 1991 Park Service conference in Vail, and LARO tried to build on that interest and commitment. [117]

Planning for a multi-state, coordinated effort to interpret the Ice Age Floods landforms continued in 1993 with the formation of the Ice Age Floods Task Force composed of representatives of federal and state agencies, universities, tribes, and individuals. Although the task force expressed the desire to work with the private sector, specifically the tourism and economic development communities, it remained largely a government task force. LARO Superintendent Gary Kuiper was the first chair, and after he retired from LARO later that year he remained involved with the task force as a re-employed annuitant hired by the Park Service Regional Director for one year. Dan Brown was involved in preparing an Interpretive Prospectus (soon scaled down to a "vision document"). LARO provided clerical support, office space, office supplies, and use of phones. Professional geologists began inventorying and evaluating important Glacial Lake Missoula and Ice Age Floods features, and others initiated a survey of existing interpretive devices and publications. After 1996, LARO staff no longer took the lead in the Ice Age Floods project but continued as a partner. The Columbia Cascades Support Office assumed the coordinating role at that point. [118]

A private non-profit organization, the Ice Age Floods Institute, formed in 1994, at the same time the Park Service Regional Office ran out of funding for the project. The Institute's purpose was to raise public awareness and private funding for the effort. Agency personnel, including LARO Superintendent and Task Force chair Gerry Tays, expressed concern that the Institute appeared eager to develop site- or project-specific plans before agreeing on a framework for the entire project. He and Dan Brown continued to urge everyone involved to "Think BIG." Although the Park Service pushed for a Study of Alternatives and national designation, some people were wary of federal involvement. Superintendent Tays, not wanting to see the Task Force eliminated, essentially put it on hold. He felt that the private sector had to be convinced that federal involvement was essential to the success of the project. [119]

LARO expanded its Ice Age Floods interpretation in 1992. The state of Washington could no longer afford to staff the Dry Falls visitor center, and some Park Service personnel did not want to see the center close because they felt it was the best place to interpret the Ice Age Floods. Dan Brown and Gary Kuiper made presentations to various state officials. The state and the Park Service signed a cooperative agreement in May 1992 under which LARO personnel operated the visitor center from May to September and the state provided facility maintenance. The funding for this first year of operation came from regional funds rather than park base funds. The Northwest Interpretive Association maintained a sales outlet and a part-time sales clerk at the visitor center, and LARO prepared site bulletins on Dry Falls and on the Ice Age Floods. Over seventy thousand visitors came to the facility that summer. The following year, funding from a Challenge Cost Share Grant allowed the visitor center to be remodeled. The work included improving the visitor center's handicap accessibility, building a mini-theater, updating exhibits, and upgrading signage. At the end of the season, it was noted that Dry Falls personnel needed to have some scheduled time at headquarters so their work would have more recognition internally. [120]

By 1994, some LARO staff were disturbed that park staff were working outside the park boundaries at Dry Falls. Superintendent Tays, however, continued to support LARO personnel working at Dry Falls; he recognized that it was a major access point for the park. Dan Brown remembered,

It really met with mixed review in the park, actually a lot of resistance. I had division chiefs come up and tell me, call me aside and say as long as I was providing interpretive services outside the park, they were not going to support my program inside the park. [121]

Some felt the effort should be supported by outside funding. Others were concerned that the exhibits needed to be upgraded and updated. Following Superintendent Tays' departure in 1996, the hours at Dry Falls visitor center were decreased to the minimum allowed by the cooperative agreement with the state. Since 1997, the Park Service and the state has had a cooperative agreement with a third partner, Grant County Tourism Commission. Currently, LARO personnel help staff the Dry Falls visitor center two days a week in the summer, the state manages the facility, and the Commission provides funding. The funds that had been spent staffing Dry Falls in previous years have been reallocated to provide interpretation within the recreation area. [122]

The Ice Age Floods Special Resource Study was funded by Congress in 1998 and is being coordinated by the Park Service's Seattle office with input from LARO staff. Federal and private funding is now in place to create an Ice Age Floods National Geographical Region. The current proposal covers some 16,000 square miles in four states. Land ownership would not change, but federal, state, and private entities would be involved in regional interpretation of the Ice Age Floods. [123]