North Cascades

MARKETING THE WILDERNESS: DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISES

WATER RESOURCES: HYDROELECTRICITY

Overview

Davis Family power plant, originally located on their homestead at Cedar Bar.
(Photo by G. Luxenberg, NPS, 1984).

Since the late nineteenth century, glacier-fed streams flowing out of the North Cascades were viewed as potential sources of power production. For that purpose both individuals and companies have harnessed the waters of rivers and creeks, producing electricity for the operation of homesteads, mines, mills, and other endeavors. While exploitation of the region's water resources enhanced commercial activities, such as mining, and resulted in increased comfort for countless people, there have also been negative impacts. The commercial development of hydroelectric power has had a tremendous impact on the physical landscape of the mountains. In some cases, physiographic and cultural features have been irreversibly altered, and in other cases entirely lost. In all cases, hydroelectricity and its development within the North Cascades has left a permanent and obvious imprint upon the wilderness.

Long before large power companies grew hungry for kilowatts, individuals in the area of today's park utilized hydropower on a limited scale to generate power for running mining equipment and sawmills. To this day, the remains of a water-operated power plant can be seen along the Thunder Creek trail, and remnants of a Pelton Wheel and sawmill can be located not far from Doubtful Lake. In the 1920s the Davis family produced power for their roadhouse on their homestead at Cedar Bar. They constructed a sizable wood frame structure and water wheel which generated electricity from nearby Stetattle Creek. This powerhouse provided the family with a resource few early settlers enjoyed. Touted as the first power plant on the Skagit River, the structure stands today and can be viewed in the town of Diablo.

Settlers at the head of Lake Chelan also generated their own power using water sources. Here, too, Pelton Wheels were a popular commercial brand of hydroelectric equipment commonly used in the valley. The valley's largest hydroelectric power plant was owned and operated by Arthur W. Peterson in the 1940s. Peterson was issued a special-use permit by the USFS in 1945 to build a log-jam dam on Company Creek. A wooden pipe carried water from the creek to a 155-horsepower plant on Peterson's property where the electricity was produced. In the 1960s, the Chelan County Public Utilities District leased Peterson's plant, selling electricity to valley residents and enabling them -- for the first time -- to use modern electric appliances such as refrigerators and freezers. [183]