Grand Coulee Dam, Washington, circa 1941

About this postcard

Aerial view of Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River, with water spilling over the spillway in a broad white sheet. A bridge crosses the river below the dam, and roads, buildings, and greenery line the far bank. The printed caption calls the dam the "Eighth Wonder of the World" and "Mightiest Handiwork of Man," citing its 500-foot height, 4,300-foot span, and the 151-mile Roosevelt Lake backed up behind it. It also identifies Engineers City in the foreground, the settlement tied to the dam's construction. Grand Coulee was built in the 1930s and early 1940s as a federal reclamation and hydropower project, and its reservoir became a central feature of the Columbia Basin irrigation system.