Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 269, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 November 1912 — PREPARATION FOR BUILDING A DAM [ARTICLE]

PREPARATION FOR BUILDING A DAM

M. L. Pass Writes From Arrowrock, Idaho, About the Preliminaries to the Business. Editors Republican: From Bueblo, Colo., To Salt Lake I did go, And took the Oregon Short Line For Boise, Idaho. , If my living was to come from writing poetry, I am afraid I' would be broke about all the time. Well, I stopped when my nose hit the arrow rock. I will enclose a picture of it and if any one can see the impression on the rock they will beat yours truly. We are still from the damming business. A person can damn the government without any preliminary work except a choice selection of adjectives, but when the government is doing the damming and the plan is as extensive as this one, there is a big amount of preparation. I suppose after the surveys and the plans had been made here the first thing done was the building of the railroad from Barber Junction to where it connects with the Oregon Short Line.' It is 17 miles in length and a train makes daily trips and brings cargos of everything rough lumber. It is said to be the only standard guage railroad in the United States owned and operated by Uncle Sam. With but fAw exceptions all the machinery here is run by % electricity furnished by a power pla'nt 3 miles* above Bairkey Junction and having a capacity of 3,000 horsepower. Lumber for all the dam work is furnished by a government mill located at Bottomwood creek, 18 miles above this place. It is equipped with a Curtis “Dixie D” mill and a 40 h. p. engine. Its total output is about 5,500,000 feet, board measure. And now we are to camp, where a little more preliminary damming is done, so hold to patience. There are 17 bunks or lumbermen’s sheds, which will accommodate about 700 men; 11 cottages for the “high collar’’ men; 100 or more private cottages and tents erected by the men themselves for the accommodation of their families, altogether making a provisional damming city of about 1,200. The dining rooms will seat about 650 and about 60,000 meals are served a month. The kitchen is furnished with an electrical vegetable peeler, slicer, masher and dishwasher, a steam cooker (not a steam roller), two steaming and carving tables and ranges having a cooking surface of 84 square feet, all heated by electricity. That’s some kitchen, as any housewife, can tell you, and shows the extent of this dam business. A two-story ware-house 30x125 feet contains all, kinds of supplies, besides a meat market and refrigerator with a capacity for 26,000 pounds of meat and an artificial ice plant of six tons capacity daily.

A bath house with six showers and two tubs is open day and night, so there is no excuse for getting mangy. There is also a laundry room provided with set tubs where any one can do their own washing. A club house 36x50 feet, is open to all employees. It contains reading tables and chaiVs, a phonograph, pool tables, piapo, moving picture machine, checkers and chess. It is maintained and operated by the Y. M. ,£. A., in connection with the reclamation service. The hospital contains all modern equipments, including an x-ray machine. It contains one ward of 8 beds and 3 private rooms. The building and equipment cost $3,600. You can see that the government goes into this dam business in pretty good shape. A fee of $1 per month is charged each employe. No board Is charged while one is under the care of a doctor and after 15 days one gets full pay again Other buildings include a heating plant with two 50 h. p. high pressure boilers, a poatofflce, bakery, root cellar, 'isolation hospital, stable, dining room for the “high collars," “clean hands” and “never sweats,” and a cottage for official visitors. The water is taken from Deer Creek reservoir and conveyed to a 3,500 gallon tank 300 feet above the camp. The sewage system is also perfect. A septic tank is connected to all the buildings and manholes placed at convenient points. The construction plant consists of a wood work shop, equipped with a Universal wood working machine, a planer, mill work wheel, wrlghting and bench work all being done in this shop; a machine shop containing a 24 foot, 18 inch lathe, shaper, drill presß, splitting shears and other necessary tools; a blacksmith shop containing three forges, a steam hammer and all kinds of smithing tools; a sand cement plant with a capacity of 1,000 barrels per 24 hours; and here is where Uncle Sam schemed a little. In this plant is a rock crusher and sand raWs, a rotary dryer, ball mill, mixing machine, and three tube mills. The sand cement is made * by blending Portland cement with an equal amount of pulverised granite. The granite taken from the excavation and run through the crusher and sand mills, next through the dryer and to the ball mill, where It Is pulverised to pass a No. 20 mekh seiveT It Is then mixed with Portland cement and ground with it in the tube mills tc such fineness that 95 per cent passes a 200 mesh seive. The resulting product is as strong as the original Portland and from this the dam will be

constructed. The power machinery consists of tjvo 15-ton Lidgerwood electric cableways, having^a span of 1,500 feet; the head towers being 60 feet high and tail towers 100 feet. Hoisting speed is 300 feet per minute, and traveling speed 1,200 feet per minute. These cableways take the excavated material in 4 cubic yard skips or pans to the screening and crushing plant. Cable height above bed rock is about 375 feet. Orange peel and clam shell buckets# are also operated. One 70-ton Atlantic steam shovel has a 2% cubic yard dipper; one stone drag excavates with 2% cubic yard bucket and 70 foot boom. Four’ 10-ton American stiff log derricks, with 3drum hoists and 80-foot booms; concrete mixers; two Crowe concrete placing cableways and equipments, also four dinkey engines, derricks, pile drivers, etc. The diversion work consists of an upper cofferdam about 200 feet long and 35 feet wide, built of timber, crib fashion and filled with excavated material. A lower cofferdam 100 feet long and 35 feet wide; this prevents the river from backing up, while the upper one turns the river into the diversion tunnel, -which is 30 feet wide and 25 feet high, is 600 feet long, driven through solid granite, lined with concrete and capable of carrying 20,000 feet per second. These diversion works were built for the purpose of diverting Boise river around the works during construction period. After the dam is finished the tunnel will be filled with concrete. And now we are to Arrowrock Dam at last, and our story 'is almost finished. Our dam comes last but it is not least by any means. The principal dimensions are: maximum height, 351 feet; thickness at base, 240 feet; width at top, 16 feet; radius of curvature, 662 feet; length of crest, 1,060 feet; length of spillway, 400 feet; depth s os foundation below river bed, about 80 feet; area of foundation, about one acre. The “spillway” ia a ditch cut around the hill to prevent overflow of dam. Principal quantities of dam: excavation for dam, 250,000 cubic yards; concrete in dam, 530,000 cubic yards; gates and accessories, 1,000 tons; excavation for spillway, 300,000 cubic yards; concrete in spillway, 10,000 cubic yards; capacity of reservoir, 230,000 cubic feet; length of reservoir, 18 miles. t This dam, when finished, will be the highest in the world. The concrete in the dam, placed in a column ten feet square, would reach to a height of 27 miles. About 2,500 carloads of sand cement will be used in the construction of the dam. The water in the reservoir will cover to a depth of one foot, an area of 360 square miles. All this is being done by the Department of the Interior and will be charged up to the state of Idaho. The sum is estimated at 7 million dollars, and will require four years more in which to complete the work. I am under obligations to Chas. H. Paul, construction engineer, for the notes from which this article was prepared. James Munn is superintendent of construction. Respectfully youTs, ’ M. L. PASS,