Dry Falls improvements slated in 1947

E-mail from Cheryl

Facts from the past gleaned from the Moses Lake Herald, Columbia Basin Herald and The Neppel Record by Cheryl (Driggs) Elkins:

Dennis note: We have been reviewing Columbia Basin history from 1941 for some time. It’s time to jump around a bit, before returning to 1941.

From the Columbia Basin Herald on Jan. 3, 1947:

State unwraps Dry Falls Project

Plans for vast improvements at Dry Falls State Park, up to now pretty much of a state secret, came into the open this week when the state opened bids on the first phase of the $5,000,000 program.

Rushlight Automatic Sprinkler Co., Portland, was low bidder on instillation of utilities at the resort project near Soap Lake. The firm’s bid was $358,213, about twice as much as the state had figured on.

The bid covers construction of the park’s water system, sewage disposal and installation of an electrical system. Tom Martin, director of state parks, in whose Olympia office the bids were opened, said an award will not be made until bids are reported to members of the state parks committee.

Plans call for development of Dry Falls into one of the main tourist attractions in the state, with an initial outlay of $1,000,000 and more from time to time. Even without improvements, the park registered 500,000 visitors last year and always has been a leader in attendance figures among the state’s 80 parks.

A sporty nine-hole golf course, to cost around $75,000 is being laid out now at Dry Falls. Bud Ward, national known amateur golfer of Spokane, and Bill Southerton, greenskeeper of the Spokane Country Club, were called in as technical advisors in planning the course.

When the two storage dams above Coulee City are completed and water is impounded, tourist parties will be able to go by boat from Dry Falls Park to Grand Coulee Dam.

Dennis note: This is most interesting information. Research has revealed the only road to the park in the beginning was from the north. Soap Lake residents, and others from the south, couldn’t reach Dry Falls State Park, without traveling around to Coulee City first and then heading south.

Eventually there was a push for a road from the south, because the park was so popular. My family spent many a day at the park with family and friends when my sister, Denise, and I were growing up.