Dam Brothers

Oscar Windom Dam (b. 1883), Everett Stephen Dam (b. 1885) and Milton Emery Dam (b. 1886) were the sons of Alton S. Dam, an early developer of large scale irrigation in the Yakima Valley. After attending the University of Washington, the oldest brother, Oscar, became a Federal Service employee with the United States Customs Service in Seattle, while the two younger brothers formed a Seattle brokerage firm, which they named Dam Brothers. Although these occupations provided their livelihoods, the over-riding concern of all three brothers was the promotion of a large hydroelectric dam at Priest Rapids on the Columbia River.

The Priest Rapids project was first envisioned by Alton S. Dam in about 1910 and his sons were to spend the next twenty years in a vain effort to make it a reality. They were able to interest the General Electric Company and the related Electric Bond and Share Company, as well as such exponents of large scale electrification as Sidney Z. Mitchell. Together with these large eastern interests, they formed a corporation to finance the construction of the dam. This corporation, the Washington Development and Irrigation Company, was headed by General Electric’s Henry H. Pierce, and held the license for the project but received little financial backing from the parent companies. Consequently, the firm of Dam Brothers undertook to arrange financing for the dam. They were met with opposition from the investment community and the regulatory authorities, both insisting that a market for electric power must be a part of the overall development. Thus, the Dam brothers found themselves promoting nitrate, fertilizer, and aluminum plants at Priest Rapids, as well as the dam. They also approached the Northern Pacific Railroad with a proposal to electrify and relocate its tracks across the Columbia River at the Priest Rapids Dam. Additionally, the brothers sought to develop an irrigation project on a large tract of land which they owned. As they stood to gain much from the increase in land values promised by the irrigation project, this element of the scheme, which was known as the Priest Rapids Highlands Project, received considerable attention from all three brothers.

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