An understanding of what created the Dry Falls in the Grand Coulee Canyon was first revealed about 13000 years after the event. And it was not yet known when tourists first started to visit the site in the early 20th Century. The 1890 completion of the Northern Pacific branch line between Spokane and Coulee City made visits to both the Dry Falls and Soap Lake possible for persons willing to trek or take a wagon the last few miles to those destinations from the rail head. The opening of the trans-state highway over Stevens Pass in 1925 substantially increased the volume of puzzled visitors. Many by them brought cameras and the fenced prospect constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the Great Depression has been the platform from which most of the snapshots have been made depicting the effects the late ice age’s great floods as ice dams broke releasing walls of water sometimes 1,000 feet high. Believe it or not.
Now we will nudge Jean to put up at least one more historic shot of the Dry Falls – the one (or perhaps two) we used in our book “Washington Then and Now” – and examples of his own repeats in 2006. (Readers may want to visit our website to see more of Jean’s state-wide repeats pulled from the book.)
(click to enlarge photos)
- Horace Sykes wide-angle look at Dry Falls ca. 1950.
Jean writes: the following photos are from two visits to Dry Falls. I’ll begin with the Then & Now photos we featured in our book. A couple from Seattle graciously posed for me to help repeat the original. The boy in the red shirt darted into the photo at the last second, giving it a little impromptu oomph.
- THEN at the Dry Falls lookout
- NOW
More shots from different perspectives.
- The view from the outlook
- A view of the outlook
- View with chains
- Looking north
