Grand Coulee Dam
Dam · Grand Coulee, Washington
A concrete gravity dam on the Columbia River, built between 1933 and 1942 as a New Deal public works scheme and enlarged with a third powerhouse in the 1970s. It is the largest power-producing facility in the United States by nameplate capacity and the largest concrete structure in the country, and it irrigates roughly half a million acres of what was otherwise sagebrush desert. It also has no fish ladders, and permanently ended salmon runs on more than a thousand miles of the upper Columbia.
Highway 155, Grand Coulee, Washington, 99133, United States
The Visitor Center is open daily in summer and on reduced hours or reduced days the rest of the year - check before driving out, because it is a long way to arrive and find it shut. Free. The laser light show runs nightly through the summer season only, roughly Memorial Day to the end of September, beginning after full dark. Overlooks and the surrounding roads are open year round.
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