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SOILS 



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Vol. XV 



JUNE, igog 



No. 6 



THE PATHFINDER DAM 



By C. ]. BLANCHARD, Statistician, U, S, Reclamation Service 



THE completion of the Pathfinder 

 dam, one of the highest structures 

 of its kind in the world, is the 

 event which the people of Wyoming 

 and Nebraska are now celebrating. 

 Resting on a bed of solid granite, and 

 hewn from the vertical walls of the 

 same formation through which the 

 North Platte River has cut its channel, 

 a massive masonry monolith closes the 

 canyon. It rises 215 feet above its 

 foundation, and is 500 feet long on top. 

 But the real significance of the event is 

 that it marks the most important step 

 in the reclamation of large tracts of the 

 Great Plains area in both states, and 

 their transformation to thickly settled 

 farming communities, with numerous 

 populous and prosperous towns and vil- 

 lages. 



The North Platte River drains an 

 area of 90,000 square miles, carrying 

 the run-ofif of a large mountainous ter- 

 ritory. Fed by the melting snows of 

 spring and early summer its volume 

 swells to large proportions, but in the 

 late summer it shrinks to a small 

 stream, distributed over a wide stretch 



of shifting sands. Every drop of the 

 low water flow has long been appro- 

 priated, and the conservation of the 

 flood waters of the river was beyond 

 the reach of private capital. It was 

 for the purpose of storing the flood and 

 winter waters and controlling the flow 

 of this irregular river that the great 

 dam just completed was planned. 



Behind the massive wall of masonry 

 a million acre-feet of water will be 

 stored each year, and the destructive 

 floods of the North Platte River, which 

 annually have caused damages far in 

 excess of the cost of the dam, will 

 never again visit the valley. The name 

 of the structure is most appropriate, 

 in that it makes of the dam a fitting 

 monument to commemorate forever the 

 achievement of the Nation's daring pio- 

 neer and ex])lorer. Capt. John C. Fre- 

 mont, "The Pathfinder."" 



The North Platte Irrigation Project 

 is one of the largest so far unclertaken 

 by the Government. From the Path- 

 finder dam at a point on the North 

 Platte River about fifty miles southwest 

 from Casper, Wyo., to the farthest lim- 



317 



