Qualla: American Falls Dam

American Falls Dam: Introduction

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bureau of Reclamation, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1923, the federal government invoked eminent domain and told the residents of American Falls, Idaho, to pack up and move. Three-quarters of their town would soon be underwater. The Bureau of Reclamation was building a dam, and the reservoir it created would swallow most of the settlement that had grown up around the Snake River's cascading falls. The townspeople relocated, their old streets and buildings vanishing beneath the rising waters. But the story did not end there. Fifty years later, the dam itself would be condemned, its concrete crumbling from an insidious chemical reaction. The massive structure that had erased a community would itself be demolished and rebuilt.

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Image: Bureau of Reclamation | CC BY-SA 2.0

American Falls Dam: Ancient Waterworks

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Staplegunther at English Wikipedia, CC BY 2.5. Long before humans built dams here, nature was already experimenting. During the late Pliocene, more than a million years ago, a lava dam created a broad shallow lake across the Raft River basin. The lake filled with fine sand, silt, and gravel before the natural dam breached and...

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Image: Staplegunther at English Wikipedia | CC BY 2.5

American Falls Dam: The Original Falls

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The city of American Falls was platted in the early 1880s, named for the waterfall where the Snake River channel narrowed and cascaded over highly jointed basalt in several drops. The first power plant was built on the falls in 1902, acquired by Idaho Power Company in 1916. The f...

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Image: Public domain

American Falls Dam: Drowning a Town

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit An Errant Knight, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Bureau of Reclamation began constructing the first American Falls Dam in 1925, completing it in 1927. Engineer Frank A. Banks designed the concrete gravity-type structure. The Oregon Short Line Railroad bridge had to be raised to clear the new reservoir. For the displaced res...

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Image: An Errant Knight | CC BY-SA 4.0

American Falls Dam: Betrayed by Chemistry

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit United States Bureau of Reclamation, Public domain. In the early 1960s, engineers took core samples from the original dam and discovered troubling news. A chemical reaction between components of the concrete had caused deterioration, impairing the structure's durability and strength. The dam that had forced a community to relocate...

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Image: United States Bureau of Reclamation | Public domain

American Falls Dam: Sacred Ground Submerged

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Staplegunther at English Wikipedia, CC BY 2.5. The dam's expansion was not without opposition. Members of the Shoshone and Bannock communities fought the project, which would further flood the lands of the Fort Hall Bottoms. Native Americans have inhabited this region for at least 10,000 years, and the area remains an importa...

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Image: Staplegunther at English Wikipedia | CC BY 2.5