By LAKE DODD LEAGUE

LIFE SKETCH OF E.P. DODD

E.P. DODD was born on the banks of an irrigation canal which was built by his father in 1867 in Boise Valley, Idaho, and has been interested in irrigation and power projects ever since his boyhood days.

He and his family are of pioneer stock. His father and mother crossed the plains in 1858 to the Pike's Peak mining excitement and soon after trecked-by covered wagon-to the Boise Basin, new Eldorado, and located a homestead later in Boise Valley. There his mother taught the first school in the region and his father engaged in the cattle business. The boy grew up on the ranges until near manhood when he took off for something more than the little red schoolhouse. He spent a year in academic work in Iowa, then a year at Stanford, followed by three more years at Indiana University where he graduated in 1897. The next spring, pursuing the lure of gold like his parents, he started for the Klondike but heavy storms in the North delayed him and, instead, he bought a daily newspaper in Pendleton which he published nine years.

While there he married Stella Alexander, daughter of another pioneer family. Mr. Dodd's mother, now 91, was born in The Dalles and grew up in Baker. In 1880 she married R Alexander, a young merchant, and settled during the last Indian wars at Pendleton where Mr. Alexander operated a general merchandising store for half a century. The Dodds have two daughters, Mrs. Jens Terjesen of Pendleton, and Mrs. Dale Fischer of Eugene. Mr. Terjesen is president of the Oregon Wheat Commission and vice-president of the National Wheat League, and Mr. Fischer is a director in the West Coast Lumbermens' Association. The Dodds have four grandchildren and also many relatives and friends in Oregon, Washington and Idaho who have long been part of the great Pacific Northwest and its various developments.

It was in Pendleton when editor of his newspaper that Mr. Dodd became interested in what has proved to be his life's real work.

During that time, 1902, the Reclamation Act was passed and Mr. Dodd began covering the subject of irrigating the west part of Umatilla and northern Morrow counties. He was elected secretary of the first county irrigation association in Oregon and soon after became secretary of the first county irrigation association. Through these organizations he helped to secure the Hermiston Project and in 1906 sold his newspaper and moved to Hermiston, then a small village of great prospects, with which he has been prominently identified unceasingly since. Though now well along in years he is in splendid health and alert to the future of the Central Columbia region, much of the future of which "still lies before it" in the many things nearby and surrounding the lake to be formed above McNary Dam. All this activity he had foreseen by reason of logic of events in Western progress, and all of which has largely come true throughout this first half of the 20^th century.

During his fist 25 years in Hermiston he was president of the Chamber of Commerce 15 years at intervals, with one period of seven years continuously. During that time-in 1912-he secured an appropriation of $800,000.00 for the West Extension of the Hermiston Project, Irrigon Boardman, and other funds later, from Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior under Woodrow Wilson. He also founded the town of Boardman and located many settlers in that locality.

During this period it also became evident that the projects of Stanfield and Westland would fail for want of sufficient water, and in 1916 he organized the Lower Umatilla Watershed Association to promote the construction of McKay Dam. After five years as president he was sent to Washington, D.C., to confer with the Reclamation Bureau about a dam on McKay Creek for storage for the two projects. He had successful results with Secretary Lane, who granted $3,000,000 for construction. McKay Dam saved the two projects, which now are fine examples of western irrigation.

Mr. Dodd made his first speech on the Umatilla Rapids Dam, Mow McNary, in 1923 at Vale, pinch-hitting for U.S. Senator F.W. Steiwer who was unable to be present. From that time on Mr. Dodd persistently worked for and urged the building of McNary Dam and other dams and irrigation projects within the great Columbia-Snake Basin.

After Grand Coulee and Bonneville were authorized and funds granted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt the long sought for dam at Umatilla Rapids was left unsupported by the larger cities and public organizations and became a lost cause until February 1933 when Mr. Dodd undertook its recovery.

He organized the Tri-State Development League with headquarters at Walla Walla and for two years pleaded its cause publicly throughout 18 counties in Eastern Oregon and Washington and North Idaho. He aroused public and political sentiment with letters and speeches and arguments to newspapers, political officials, citizens, civic clubs and farm organizations. In those days the Depression was on heavily and money for such campaign expenses was very difficult to collect. One dollar membership fees and few donations from chambers of commerce paid part of the expenses of the campaign. Mr. Dodd's own business suffered badly and he received no salary. In 1934 he sold some lambs from a farm flock and put part of the money in a primary race for governor, largely to advertise the Columbia River developments, and while he lost the race the campaign had good effect.

As a final result the Inland Empire Waterways Association was officially organized in Walla Walla and greater plans were formed out of the widespread sentiment that was constantly increasing.

Mr. Dodd stayed actively with the river work until the new association was formed and a seven-point program adopted including shiplocks at Bonneville, deepening the Columbia channel, the McNary Dam and Snake River dams. He then returned home and later formed the Wallula Gap Association through which to aid the larger program of the Inland Waterways Association and to protect and urge more directly other local problems. In 1938 all forces expected that the McNary Dam would be started but the President reused to grant funds because of a legal technicality, though forcefully urged by Senator McNary and Congressman Pierce and others. Then World War II came on and not until 1947 was work started on the dam. Throughout three decades Mr. Dodd has bee faithful to his adopted trust, and no man has worked longer and harder and more successfully, on a lifetime program of development of the region between the Cascades and the Rockies.

During the years Mr. Dodd has known by personal contact and correspondence many men of high public and political influence. He worked with Senator McNary through his long period of 24 years in the Senate. The men knew each other well. Mr. Dodd also knew Senators William E. Borah, F. W. Steiwer, R. N. Stanfield, George Chamberlain, "Yakima" Jones, C. C. Dill and Homer Bone of Washington, Tom Carter and W. A. Clark of Montana, and knows Guy Cordon and Wayne Morse. He also knew Congressmen N. J. Sinnott, Robert Butler, Walter Pierce, Compton I. White and Knute Hill, and knows Congressmen Lowell Stockman, Hal Holmes, and governors and many other public-minded citizens of the Pacific Northwest.

Though devoted to public enterprises for half a century he has built up a fine business known as the Dodd Investment Company, in which he has retired from active work and checks with younger men in the business and looks after his own property interests. During his idle hours he is completing a scrapbook of original sources of the history of the last half century of the Central Columbia area surrounding McNary Dam and the large pool above it. The book contains now over 200,000 words and will be distributed to all the large libraries in the Northwest for permanent reference. If his golden health continues he expects to reduce this history to a textbook story for the many children of the present and coming generations of this Inland Empire.