This appeared in the Spokane Chronicle under a photograph in July 1933.
Here Is Where Coulee Dam Will Be Constructed
This isn't an elaborate house, and it isn't located in the most beautiful spot in Washington, but it is home to Mr. and Mrs. Sam J. Seaton and their family of three girls and one boy. And even now the family is expecting to see the home give way to the mammoth Columbia basin development.
There are no more enthusiastic supporters of the Grand Coulee power dam across the Columbia river at Seaton's ferry* than the Seaton family, through whose home and farm will pass the giant dam. The site is shown in the photograph, taken by the Chronicle Friday while Senator C.C. Dill investigated the project. ** It is the first picture published in Spokane of the dam site. The white arrow on the north rock wall of the river is the mark of government reclamation engineers, and indicates where the 4290-foot dam will be hung. Along the top of the dam will be a highway that will replace the ferry. A white engineering stake behind the cameraman indicates the south end of the dam.
Under the present plan of development for which Senator Dill proposes to secure $60,000,000 from President Roosevelt's public works program, the dam will be 145 feet high, 4290 feet long, and sunk 50 feet in the bed of the Columbia river. It is in this vicinity reclamation service engineers are expected soon to start borings to determine finally information necessary to construction of the dam. Many borings have been made already in the river, and a granite ledge has been found on which to rest the dam and hold back the river.
* The Grant County ferry, operated by Sam Seaton.--CousinSam
** See "Owners of Coulee Dam Site Visited by Senator Dill" in the July 1 post, THINGS HAPPENING AT GRAND COULEE!.--CousinSam
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Also from the Spokane Chronicle under a photograph in July 1933.
Ferry to Yield Place to Grand Coulee Dam
"Ferryman, hold the boat."
For more than 12 years this has been the familiar cry as thousands of motorists worked their way down 1500 feet to Seaton's ferry, the location of the proposed Grand Coulee power dam in the Columbia river. On the occasion of the inspection of the dam site Friday by Senator C. C. Dill and party, the ferryman was 17-year-old "Charlie" A. Seaton, to whom the arrow is pointing as he tugs at the ferry chains. The other arrow indicates Senator Dill.
"Yes, father built the ferry about 12 years ago, and she's still running," the boy related. Young Seaton is looking forward to plenty of activity in the backyard of the Seaton ranch, which will be covered by the huge dam. Incidentally, he expects "business will pick up with the ferry as a result of President Roosevelt's intention to build the dam."
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From the Wenatchee World, Jan. 9, 1934.
Indians, Fearing Flood, Once Started Work On Keller Ark
OKNOGAN, (sic) Jan. 9.--This region was threatened with a flood designed to drown all its wicked inhabitants about the beginning of the century, Judge William C. Brown, noted authority on Indian lore, recalls. An ark, to save the regenerate portion of the race, was actually started near Keller at about that time, and only for skepticism of the federal government it might have come much closer to completion.
Gloomy foreteller of the coming deluge was Skolaskin, an old Indian medicine man. A master of the art of prophecy, Skolaskin had been scratched slightly by the white man's religion and apparently the story of the flood impressed him most.
Apparently he had not been told the entire story of the flood, or else he discounted the value of the rainbow set in the heavens as a promise that the waters would never again cover the earth, for he conceived the idea that the world was in a bad way and was in for a storm. He had a considerable following, Judge Brown recalls. He had been a staunch enemy of Chief Moses, declaring that leader had no business in this part of the country, and a good many of his people agreed with him.
So when Skolaskin, whom it seems had developed something more than an ordinary reputation as a prophet, began to warn other Indians about the imminent wetness of things they pricked up their ears. They, too, had heard the story of the Biblical flood from missionaries and they reasoned with homely philosophy that what happened once might happen again, so many of them started hauling timbers to the site of the proposed ark near Keller.
Just how much progress was made on the boat is not known, but its construction kept many people from the regular pursuits of the reservation, Judge Brown says, and one day agents of the federal government appeared and took Prophet Skolaskin out to Spokane where he was kept until fear of the flood "blew" over.
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