Historic Hood River
1915-16 Winter at Powerdale Construction Camp
11-25-2025
Notes
This simple page from Arline Moore’s family album tells us quire a bit about what it was like building the Powerdale hydroelectric plant in the winter of 1915-16. That looks like a lot of snow and very little insulation.
I believe this was the second Powerdale plant, after the first 1905 plant and before the 1924 one. This is an image of the 1916 dam.
Jeffrey Bryant
The Hood River Glacier, November 15, 1923, page 3 describes the Phoenix Camp used for construction of the 1923 Powerdale plant. https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn97071110/1923-11-15/ed-1/seq-3/
The camp was sold to Walter Wells.
Cecelia Parker Goodnight
If you didn’t have time to read the article Jeffrey posted the numbers were impressive, especially in 1923! “More than 2000 men were employed on the big project during the construction work which included a three mile pipeline 10 feet in diameter. The maximum employment reached 800 men last fall.”