Wilbur, Grand Coulee Dam, Fort Spokane

Ellensburg was a college town of 15,000+ and Wilbur is a farming town of 800.   Our campground was called Country Lane Campground and RV Park.   The campground had perhaps 25 sites, but what it lacked in size and amenities, it more than made up for with heart.   The owners, Bob and Linda bought the park 4 years ago and have been working hard to upgrade it.   Aside from being the most friendly and accommodating people, they spoiled us!   They had a unique offering in their campground....RV Room Service!   They had a menu for breakfast and supper, and Linda would prepare it and Bob would deliver it!   We had huge cinnamon rolls one morning and bacon and eggs another.   

Wilbur is in the heart of the wheat-growing area.   The fields were huge!   As far as you could see was wheat.   The town is about 20 miles from Grand Coulee Dam, the main purpose of our staying there.   We drove over and took the free dam tour.   We had to go through a scanner, just like in the airport, and we had  an escort as well as a tour guide on our bus.   Our destination was the pump room where we were met by a guard armed with an automatic rifle in addition to our escort and tour guide.   A bit unsettling.   From the pump room we went out on the spillway and took pictures before everyone climbed back on the bus and headed back to the car and headed to the Visitor's Center to learn more about the construction of the dam.

The cam was started in 1933 and took 9 years to complete.  It is 550 feet above bedrock (as tall as the washington Monument) and is 500 feet wide at the base.  There is enough cement in the dam to build two standard six-foot wide sidewalks around the world at the equator.   We learned that 12 towns were destroyed with the building of the reservoir (Roosevelt Lake), and salmon fishing was diverted to tributeries of the Columbia river.   This disrupted the farming in the area and caused the Indians to have to move to other areas to fish.   The dam played a key role in the WWII, as  it furnished electricity for the region to build the ships and planes needed in the war, and now the electricity is used for peaceful means and the waters provide the life-giving water needed for irrigation of the crops, and supplies the towns with their needs.  It irrigates more than 600,000 acres of rich farmland annually.   One of the pump-generators can pump 1,948 cubic feet of water PER SECOND.    One unit can fill the water needs of a city the size of Chicago.

That evening we drove back to the dam to watch the laser light show which is a 30-minute history of the dam done in laser illustrations against the spillway.   

The following day we drove to Fort Spokane.   Out of 42 buildings, only 3 remain.   The fort was built to keep peace between the farmers, miners, and the Indians who lived along the Columbia river.   IT was built where the Spokane River joins the Columbia on a bluff overlooking the river.   When the fort was closed, the buildings were used for an Indian school.   In our infinite wisdom, we removed Indian children at the age of 5 and forced them to come to Indian residential schools where they were forced to wear white people clothes and learn English.   The purpose was to integrate them into the white world as it was felt that the Indian way of life was dying, and this would provide them with the tools to exist in a white world.   After about 5 years the Indians were able to get schools on their reservations, so the children could live at home while attending school.   That left the fort with empty buildings again.    It was decided to use the buildings as a TB sanitarium for the Indians.   The fort was finally closed in 1929.   The wood from the buildings was used to build homes in the area.   The only buildings remaining are a mule stable, the guardhouse, the arsenal, and foundations of many of the other buildings.   There is a walking tour which explains the use of the various buildings.  It was a good history lesson.   

On Friday we left Wilbur and headed to Mead, about six miles from Spokane.