World's Second Biggest Power Dam
Rising as Part of St. Lawrence Project
Editor'! not: Followinc the kc
nd In a terlM of five irtlrln hv
Lulled PrM (orrepondent E Jack
son on St. Lawrence Seaway
project.
By SCISiST S. JACKSON
OCtett Correspondent
Mas-rt. .'. Y. V The see-on-
l:fjce power dam in the
world 0 n.'ng in the St. Law
rence river etween the United
States ar Canada.
Y,t tig- ork seems routine
conared to the transformation
of nature taking place nearby.
Construction of the St. Law
rence Seaway and power project-
is one of the greatest build
ing programs of all time. The
job, now at its peak, is half done
and on schedule.
Fifteen thousand workers us
ing $70 million worth of equip
ment are gathered around the
upstate New York town of Mas
aena and across the river in Can
ada to build and destroy, destroy
and build.
Around the clock, six days a
week, with a roar like a thou
sand bombers, bulldozers, hy
draulic jacks, tractors, shovels,
draglines, gantry cranes, pile
drivers and rock wagons scoop
and dig, hammer and drill, dump
and Curt, lift and drop.
Float Sul Bridge
A steel bridge is floated four
miles upstream to provide a clos
er crossing for workmen. It will
be dynamited away. A road is
laid to move equipment. Three
hours later it is ripped up. A
3,000-foot dam is steel-piled into
the river bed. It is only tempo
rary. Islands are sliced in half.
Three islands are made one as if
to prove that Humpty-Dumpty
can be put back together again.
The long Sault pronounced
Soo Rapids, once fearsome and
impassable in their sharp 45-foot
drop, are dried up. Rocks and
old cannon balls lie sunning on
the salt.
Next July a great man-made
flood will creep across 700
square miles where cattle once
grazed peacefully beneath the
elms. Seven Canadian towns will
be buried forever but not wip
ed off the map.
The 6,500 persons who lived
in them will have been moved
with all their possessions to new
towns with new houses, church
es, schools and shops. The man
who could not part with the old
homestead will see his house
placed on a U-shape trailer and
rolled 10( miles away, plunked
down without so much as a
pilled glass of water, next to
his lifelong neighbor.
Moti Farm Families
Two hundred and 25 Ameri
can farm families will have been
moved out, and bulldozers and
governmenfpaid "arsonists" will
have leveled and burned every
thing more than two inches
across or a foot high.
The Seaway is not only con
struction. It is destruction of Er
nie's service station and the Car
ibou tea room in Aultsville (pop
ulation 450). Lloyd Davis will
get a new filling station in New
Iroquois; school teacher Edith
Render, a modern bungalow to
replace the old home in what
already is a ghost town of tum
bling houses with torn blinds
and smashed windows.
Even the dead must be moved
to make way for the new 35
mlle lake. Behind green cano
pies, the presence of clergymen.
workmen dig up coffins and
tombstones to place Lefevre next
to McDonald again five miles in
land. In a project unique in interna
tional annals, Canadians meet
Americans from Oregon and Ar
k a n s a s at the international
boundary at midstream. Each is
building half of the 3,300-foot
power dam. For the new high
level Roosevelt International
bridge, the United States will
build the superstructure, Canadi
ans the substructure.
Pool Resources ,
For the St. Lawrence power
dam, the New York State Power
Authority is throwing in $335
million, and the Ontario Hydro
Electric Power Commission the
remainder to develop 1,800,000
kilowatts for upstate New York,
Ontario, Quebec and Vermont,
an output second only to Grand
Coulee.
On the Seaway itself the U. S.
St. Lawrence Seaway Develop
ment Corp., with money bor
rowed from the U. S. treasury, is
building two locks 800 feet long,
80 feet wide and 30 feet deep,
named for President Eisenhower
and the nearby Grass river. They
can lift a 25,000-ton ship 45 feet
in eight minutes. The United
States also is constructing the
Long Sault canal, 10 miles long
and 442 feet wide.
Upstream it is dredging the
channel and removing shoals in
a 68-mile stretch of the Thou
sand Islands. Total U. S. cost:
$140 million to be repaid in 50
years through tolls collected
from ships using the Seaway.
Opposite Massena, the Canadi
ans, through their own seaway
authority, were 90 per cent done
in July with their Iroquois lock
and canal. Downstream toward
Montreal they are building two
locks at Lachine and two at
Soulanges and deepending the
channel to the standard 27 feet
at Lake St. Louis.
Improve Old Canal
To the west, Canada is deep
ening and widening seven locks
of the old Welland canal, which
bypasses Niagara Falls in Cana
dian territory to link Lakes On
tario and Erie. Total cost to Can
ada: $285 million.
The American locks will be
ready next July, but it will be
April, 1959, before Canada fin
ishes work downstream and the
new Seaway opens with only
seven locks where once there
had been 21.
Men are making this engineer
ing miracle, but it is the ma
chines which today make the
project a 3D "spectacular."
Three hundred thousand side
walk superintendents a year
visit the construction site; in lat
er years tourists will drive
through a tunnel beneath Eisen
hower lock.
The visitors of tomorrow will
see ships instead of "the gentle
man," a million-dollar, dragline
with a scoop large enough to
hold 12 men or a pick-up truck.
Where today there is dirt
enough to fill a trainload of box
cars which would reach 25,000
miles around the equator to
morrow there will be water.
Tomorrow: The lakes have
"seaway fever."
Salt Lake Rock
Moving Job Starts
Little Valley, Utah iw
Power shovels and trucks Mon
day began the months-long job
of dumping into Great Salt Lake
the three million tons of rock
cracked from a cliff here by the
nation's largest non-atomic ex
plosion. The rock will become the
wave-proof facing of a 13-mile
earth fill structure being con
structed across the northwest
arm of the lake by Southern
Pacific Railway to replace an ob
solete wooden portion of the
Lucin Cut.
When the $49 million job is
completed in about four years,
transcontinental trains can cross
the lake faster and safer.
The explosion Sunday was one
of superlatives. There were
1,790,000 pounds of explosives
packed into tunnels at the base
of the 200 foot quartzite rock
cliff. Previous non-atomic rec
ord holder for blasts was 1,362,
000 pounds used on a Tennessee
TV A dam in 1949.
When the explosives a com
bination of dynamite and nitra'e
fertilizer with a punch l-37th
that of a "nominal" atomic bomb
Tuesday. July 23, 1957
MEDFORD (OREGON) MAIL TRIBUNE SEVEN
Teenagers Dance Hall
Permit Is Aproved
A, dance hall permit for Earl
Neeley, Ashland, was approved
Monday morning by the Jackson
county court.
Neeley is operator of "The
Playland," 1955 Highway 66.
which he has planned for use
of teenagers. An Italian restaur
ant adjoining thei dance hall
will open this week, he said.
The hall is open from 6 to
11 p.m. and boys must wear
slacks and dress shirts and girls
dresses, Neeley told the court.
GREAT PROFILE GREATEST
Hollywood OPi Veteran ac
tress Mary Astor, who stars
Wednesday night on "Climax,"
on CBS-TV, says John Barry
more was the screen's greatest
as far as she's concerned the
greatest lover and the greatest
wit. "Before the cameras he dou
bled me backward with his ar
dor, and behind them he dou
bled me forward with his
jokes," she said. "I got a little
lumbago and a lot of laughs."
went ff, they loosened two
million cubic yards of material.
The VODKA
of VODKAS
There's a difference
in vodkas and it's
a difference
worth knowing.
Driest of the dry!
0mimoff
THE GREATEST NAME IN VODKA
P
mm
80 PROOF DISTILLED FROM GRAIN STE PIERRE SMIRNOFF FLS.
(DIVISION OF HEUBLEIN). HARTFORD. CONN, U. S. A FRANCE, ENGLAND. MEXICO
Una Turner Granted
Divorce From 'Tarzan'
Hollywood lift Screen star
Lana Turner Monday was grant
ed an interlocutory divorce from
her movie Tarzan husband. Lex
Barker, after she testified he
had an "uncontrollable temper"
and hit her in the face during a
breakfast table argument. -
The screen siren, dressed in a
black shantung silk suit and ob
viously under great nervous
strain, told Judge Edward R
Brand in Santa Monica Superior
court that Barker had been
something less than a gentleman
at times while in her company.
Miss Turner, 37, said her hus
band engaged in frequent argu
ments with her "and had an un
controllable temper which he
showed too many times."
On one occasion during an ar
gument at the breakfast table
Barker hit her in the face, she
said.
Rainier's Father
Denies Kidnap Rumor
Ostaad, Switzerland IP
Prince Rainier's father said Mon
day reports of a threat to kid
nap six-month-old Princess Caro-
line were "false rumors."
it frince riainier had re
ceived any anonymous letters
threatening my granddaughter
Princess Carolina. I. as a grand
father, would be much less calm
than I am this morning," the
Prince of Polignac said.
Reports f r.o m Switzerland
published in the United States
said Prince Rainier and Princess
Grace had received unsigned let
ters threatening the kidnaping
of their daughter.
Palace officials at Monte Car
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lo said they knew "nothing
whatsoever" of such letters.