Mementos of a Seattle City Light Skagit River tour

  • By David Wilma
  • Posted 12/19/2000
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 2894
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Beginning in the 1920s, Seattle City Light offered tours of its hydroelectric dams on the Skagit River to promote public support of the project. This file contains mementos (a sketch, a program, a tour pass) of a visit by the Women's City Club of Seattle on May 16, 1929. City Light Superintendent J.D. Ross (1872-1939) and City Councilman Otto A. Case personally escorted the excursionists over the project.

The Program

The itinerary of the visit is listed on the program at the right:

P.M.
3:00  Leave Rockport for Gorge.
4:30  Arrive Gorge
4:30 to 5:00  Locating quarters.
5:00  Supper in dining room. 
5:45  Everybody will please meet in front of the Theater Building. From there we walk across the suspension bridge to Newhalem Power House and through the wooded trail to Newhalem Creek, a real beauty spot. (Newhalem Creek enters the Skagit River one-quarter of a mile downstream from the suspension bridge.)
At dusk we meet in front of Building No. 2 near the railroad track. From there we walk to Gorge Power House. After inspection of Gorge Power House, we take the short trail through the rock gardens to Ladder Creek Falls, where a gorgeous spectacle awaits us.

Next Morning
A.M.
6:45   Breakfast in the dining room.
7:30  Leave Gorge for Diablo Dam.
8:00 to 10:50  Inspect Diablo Dam and visit Ruby Dam Site.
11:00  Leave Diablo (Reflector Bar) for Gorge.
12:00  Noon -- Dinner in dining room at Gorge.
P.M.
12:45 to 2:00 Visit flower and rock garden at Gorge Power House, and see Ladder Creek by daylight.
2:30  Leave Gorge for Rockport.
3:45  Arrive Rockport.


Sources:

"125 Club Women View Work At Skagit Plant," Clipping from unknown newspaper, May 17,1929 (penciled date), Uncat NW Box 47, Seattle Public Library; City of Seattle, Lighting Department, "Skagit Tours Route And Program," leaflet, Uncat NW Box 47, Seattle Public Library; Ruth Krepa, "The Audience," pen and ink sketch, 1929, Uncat NW Box 47, Seattle Public Library; Winston Bros. Company, "Diablo Dam Site Pass, No. 1839," Uncat NW Box 47, Seattle Public Library.


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