Interpretations
Articles by Atlas researchers and community members on drowned towns, the dams that displaced them, and the people who lived there.
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A History of Hover, Washington, and its founder, Herbert A. Hover
How a Columbia River town founded by Herbert A. Hover rose and was lost beneath the water, leaving behind today's Hover Park.
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Big Personalities
Portraits of the people who shaped Detroit, Oregon, from its railroad beginnings to its inundation in 1953.
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Cold War in the West
How Cold War priorities and federal spending transformed the American West and drove its era of dam building.
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Construction of Detroit and Big Cliff Dams
The planning and construction of Detroit and Big Cliff Dams on Oregon's North Santiam River, part of the Willamette Valley Project.
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Detroit Dedication
The 1953 ceremony marking the completion of Detroit Dam, then the fourth tallest dam in the world.
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From Idanha to Old Detroit to New Detroit
A first-person memoir of a family's moves from Idanha to old Detroit, Oregon, and then to new Detroit.
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Natural Disturbance, Engineered Landscapes, and Community Displacement
Reading Willamette Valley dam projects as engineered disturbance that reshaped ecosystems and communities alike.
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Saving Cascadia State Park
How local newspaper coverage helped a community defeat the proposed Cascadia Dam and save Cascadia State Park.
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School and Family Life in Old Detroit, Oregon
Family memories of neighbors, school, and daily life in old Detroit, Oregon, before the town was flooded.
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The Legal Basis for River Development in the Willamette Valley
The laws and legal rationale that let federal agencies and private companies dam the rivers of the Willamette Valley and the American West.
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The Treaties of 1851 and 1855
The Kalapuyan and Molallan homelands of the North Santiam Canyon, and the treaties that took them.
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The Weight of Water - Ethical Dilemmas in Large-Scale Dam Projects
The ethical costs of large-scale dam projects, weighed against the benefits they promised.
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Three Gorges, China -- Documenting the World's Largest Dam-Induced Displacement
Extending the Atlas beyond the American West to China's Three Gorges Dam, which displaced roughly 1.4 million people.