page_title: Kettle Falls
section_title: The Third Powerhouse
hierarchical_section_title: Kettle Falls / History / The Third Powerhouse
caption_attribution_description: English: Aerial view of Kettle Falls, partially exposed during drawdown in April 1969. The large drawdowns during construction of the third powerhouse enabled archaeologists to reach previously inundated sites, including some particularly significant ones at Kettle Falls.
context_page_description: Kettle Falls was an ancient and important salmon fishing site on the upper reaches of the Columbia River, in what is today the U.S. state of Washington, near the Canada–US border. The falls consisted of a series of rapids and cascades where the river passed through quartzite rocks deposited by prehistoric floods on a substrate of Columbia River basalt. The river dropped nearly 50 feet, and the sound of the falls could be heard for miles away. Kettle Falls was inundated in 1940, as the waters of the reservoir Lake Roosevelt rose behind Grand Coulee Dam, permanently flooding the site.
context_section_description: During the late 1960s and early 1970s Grand Coulee Dam was expanded to include a new group of generators, commonly known as the Third Powerhouse. During the spring months of this period of construction Lake Roosevelt was drastically lowered (referred to as a drawdown). The largest of these drawdowns occurred during the spring of 1969 and 1974 partially exposing Kettle Falls. In addition to exposing the falls these drawdowns also allowed the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area and the United States Bureau of Reclamation to undergo a major archaeological salvage program of Native American and historical sites previously flooded by Lake Roosevelt.
caption: Aerial view of Kettle Falls, partially exposed during drawdown in April 1969.
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