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70 YEARS AGO • JANUARY 17, 1951

WWP GETS APPROVAL ON CABINET GORGE; CONSTRUCTION WILL BE PUSHED

The Washington Water Power company has received the “go ahead” signal on its request to build the Cabinet Gorge dam. Heads of the company received word from Washington, D.C., that the federal power commission had granted a permit to construct the high power dam which will provide an additional 200,000 kilowatts of power to serve the company’s customers.

For the past few weeks contractors for the company have been constructing access roads to the dam from the highway on the north side of the river east of Clark Fork, Idaho.

Clem Stearns, public relations department official for WWP, said that the company will start immediate construction of a 13,000-volt line from Clark Fork to Cabinet for preliminary construction power and that shortly work will begin on a 110,000-volt line from Cabinet to the Sandpoint substation of Bonneville Power administration to carry power for the big construction project which is estimated at $40,000,000.

Plans call for a reinforced concrete arch structure 150 feet high, 50 feet thick at the base and 30 feet at the top, to maintain a pool 2,175 feet above sea level. Eight vertical lift gates atop the dam will permit a maximum flow of 230,000 second feet, which is nearly 100,000 feet above the record flood.

Four 27-foot tunnels about 450 feet long will carry water to the downstream powerhouse on the river’s north side. Three units of 50,000 kilowatts are on order and space is provided for a fourth to give the dam a maximum capacity of 200,000 kilowatts.

32 tons of dynamite was used to blast 50,000 cubic yards of rock from the canyon walls and a half-million cubic yards of earth was excavated from the site overall.

A preliminary construction timetable called for the diversion tunnel to be completed late next summer with cofferdams installed and powerhouse substructure completed before high water in 1952. It was hoped to have the entire project delivering power by November of 1952 but scarcity of materials as a result of the national emergency (Korean War) may seriously affect this schedule.

Origin of the name, Cabinet: The name was given the box canyon of the river by early fur traders. Father DeSmet in 1844 writes of this gorge: “The most remarkable spot on this river is called the Cabinets. It consists of four compartments, which you have hardly time to examine as you are hardly half a minute passing through them.” The Native Americans called the Clark’s Fork River, from its conjunction with the Flathead River to Lake Pend Oreille, “in-chill-oom-natkhu” meaning “River of Awe.” Before the dams in its primal condition there were rapids at Thompson Falls, Tuscor, Heron and Cabinet Gorge. These awe inspiring features are now under water, covered by the three reservoirs on the lower Clark’s Fork River.

40 YEARS AGO • FEBRUARY 5, 1981

SERVICES WEDNESDAY FOR COACH PREVIS

Funeral services were to be conducted Wednesday for Steve Joseph Previs, 71, long-time Thompson Falls High School basketball coach, who died of natural causes.

Coach Previs was born August 6, 1909 in Butte, the son of Joseph and Rosa Previsich. He was married in Missoula in 1929 to Venna Kumpu. He worked for many years in Thompson Falls and Plains for the U.S. Forest Service and Soil Conservation Service.

He taught shop and coached basketball, football, baseball and track for more than 24 years in the Thompson Falls schools. It was as a basketball mentor that he became known throughout western Montana as the “master” and the “sly ole fox” of the cage sport. His basketball teams traditionally were feared at tournament time.

As a measure of the esteem in which he was held by his former students and players, the new athletic field at Thompson Falls High School was dedicated in his name a few years ago. The field was built by fans and members of the Thompson Falls Booster Club.