Umatilla: Boomtown Again

I remember when there was no paved streets in Umatilla and the only paved street we had was the highway that runs through Umatilla. Alva Stephens, lifelong Umatilla resident

Left. This cowboy is still an icon on the main street of Umatilla. Right. A Texaco station opens for business in boomtown Umatilla. Both images circa 1947-1950. Courtesy of the Umatilla Museum and Historical Foundation

   The influx of workers to McNary Dam contributed to the region's booming economy. Many workers from the army depot remained to work on various projects, including a bridge across the Columbia, new housing for workers, and building McNary. In eastern Oregon's largest growth spurt until recently, the population of Umatilla County grew from 26,030 to 41,703 between 1940 and 1950.

. . . From 1946 in our senior class we had like 7 students and then it went up as high as 51 or 52, then when I graduated we was back down to like 30 students in my graduating class. . . at one time we had over 60 kids in my sophomore class in Umatilla which was bigger than the whole school before. Before the McNary Dam went in. Sam Nobles, Umatilla resident since 1943, March 1999 interview

    Gas stations, restaurants, motels, and other services were built virtually overnight as dam workers poured into the community. The quiet, dusty, riverside town boomed. From 1947 until the 1954 dam dedication, people arrived in droves, creating new community associations and changing the landscape.

   The boon of dam construction in Umatilla was part of soaring regional expectations of prosperity associated with dam development on the Columbia. The downriver Bonneville Dam, completed in 1938, could provide the power to build McNary, and the Bonneville sea locks would finally be justified by the removal of the Umatilla Rapids. As J.D. Ross, head of the recently created Bonneville Power Administration, put it, "Power and water-that is the vital combination for the people of Oregon and Washington and Idaho. . . Bonneville is the first completed step in our Columbia Basin program. It must be used unselfishly to help solve the navigation, power and land problems of the entire northwest."

Umatilla and neighboring Morrow County population data, 1900-1993

Hermiston growth in the Elmer Dodd scrapbook

Umatilla High School History

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