Dam, the secondlargest concrete dam in the united states. It forever changed the state of california and beyond. The Central Valley of california runs right here from redding, california, 450 miles to bakersfield. It is about 50 miles wide and it is a big, flat valley. We have had very wet and dry years. We get aboutars, 75 of the states precipitation here, so all of that would wash into the valley and cause massive flooding. The native americans that lived here prior to us with live by the river and go to Higher Ground during flood seasons. Received, it would would deposit rich soil throughout the valley and decade after decade of this, you got a very thick layer of good soil and fairly flat because as water receipts, at levels that, so you have this big valley with wonderful soil, and long growing years, so the missing part was reliable water source and that is where shasta dam came into play. The collect the water, it goes into canals, and we are supplemented by smaller ones along the sierras and further down south along the rivers. That water has turned california into an agricultural megaplex. California is one of the largest Agricultural Producers in the world and in the united states. From thehat comes general treasury, appropriated funds, so we offended by the federal government. The way this works is we produce power, we so water contracts to agriculture and water districts. We have obligations to them and for power that we try to meet. As those are sold, the money goes back to the treasury and we as an entity go back to the treasury and say we need this much money to operate shasta dam, so we get some back. We generate more money than we need to operate shasta. In studying the topography for a a bighey are looking for basin, something able to hold a lot of water, so a natural valley. We also want to look at where water is flowing. We are at shasta, where we get about 75 of the states precipitation to the north of us. By building the dam here, it provides Flood Control to the g, thef reddin largest in shasta county, and all the way to the bay area. You want to look for that natural basin. At shasta, they found three sides that would be potentially good sites and this was selected as the best because of the size and proximity. Control. Provide that this is the lobby to the power plants. In the early days of construction and when the dam was finished, this was open to the public. You are able to use this as a Central Place to visit shasta dam. After 9 11, we were not allowed to bring the public into this area, so it was closed. In 2008, we were able to open back up to the public for the full tour of shasta dam. When we redid the room, we maintained the marble originally placed, the doorways, the furniture from the nearly early 1950s. We kept it because it is cool to bring you back into the day when it was first operational to the public. It takes you back to that early 19 fifties place. 1950s place. We like to talk about the construction of shasta dam. It was built in 1938 to 1945, so the depression era project, part of roosevelts new deal to put people back to work after the depression. As they started building the dam, there were going to be 4700 jobs to build it. A lot of folks really needing the job and came out here in hopes of getting one. Halfway through construction, however, we got involved in world war ii and everything changed. We went from being a depressionera economy to a wartime economy and everything flipped. It was about building a water Storage Facility and became about power because a lot of shipyards popped up as a result of the war and they needed electricity to operate or they were no good. Aything that would produce significant amount of energy, like the shasta power plants, was needed. It was given top priority. That meant the guys that were too were deferred from draft and they would stay here and help the country by building this dam and making sure it was operational. When they started building, they had to deal with the railroad. The Southern Pacific Railroad ran along the western bank of the sacramento to the power plant and continued on, so job one was to move the train. They built a tunnel that was 1800 feet long. They started at both ends and worked toward the middle. Back in 1939, there was no gps. You have two different elevations and their building a tunnel like this. The met in a spot about size of a dinner plate. We have shaking hands from one end to the other when they broke through, so engineering was amazing. At that did was allow the train, instead of running to the middle of the jobsite, to be the toward temporarilyaround as they realized it would all become shasta lake at one time. As they started blasting through the excavation, the train was running through it. Imagine being a passenger on that train. You would be driving through one of the biggest construction sites in the country at the time. Before they were ready to Start Building the dam, they had the 1940 flood. The flood of 1940 in downtown redding, california, was underwater. This was taken where the Turtle Bay Museum and other landmarks butredding stands today, back then, it was a wild river that turned into a giant lake and that flooding caused problems at the jobsite. Fiveary of 1940 two july, months, they got that cleaned up and were ready to Start Building the dam. The way the process work was they brought gravel and sand longredding on a 9. 6 mile Conveyor Belt that had to be built. That was brought, along with cement and water from the river, next at the base of what would become the dam and that concrete was delivered and eight feet rockets. You get eight feet buckets. They radiated out from the main tower, delivering concrete, so a series at any given time. As it was delivered, gentlemen, like joe chesnutt here, would pick up a compactor and his job was to make sure there were no air bubbles in the concrete. You can see it is a pretty stiff, dry mix. Not very fluid, so if you end up with an air pocket, that would end up collapsing. His job was important. Imagine doing that all day long. Hour would pay 90 cents an thee able to do that in summer, sun, rain, it did not matter. It did not stop. By this time point, they had built a permanent home for the train and use that same tunnel they used for the train as a diversion tunnel to move the water through so they could dry out this area for the spillway. They did it block on top of lock on top of block. Of block. N top once they got to the spillway, valves allowed the river to take its natural course and they could plug up that tunnel. Why would they do that . What they wanted to do was get the lake full. The superintendent in charge of construction, same guy who builds hoover dam and others, thought the most prudent thing was to start filling the late as they were building it. He was an engineer and knew his stuff and he felt the dam was well within the area that the lake would need to fill. The water was chasing them as they filled the spillway. As they did that, they stored enough water by 1944 to generate power for the first time, one year before the dam was completed. As the generator is spinning, it is producing 142 megawatts. That one generator is capable of taking care of 135,000 homes. They will run as needed to deliver water. As allotment comes in and we are told we need to release this much, it will average that out during the 24 hour timeframe, delivering water in conjunction with water and energy demand. For example, there will not release a bunch of, so they will save it for the middle of the day when they know they need electricity. Power comes in the byproducts but they try to coordinate. We have a functioning machine shop over here, original american 1940s equipment, used to fix pieces of generators that might need repair. He will not go to the local Hardware Store and pick up the pieces you might need it the generator goes out. They can manufacture or tool different pieces here for repair. In front of us, this is a giant area to tool a giant shaft if they need to. We have drills in the back that they would use, so as things need to be repaired, they can take care of that in the machine shop. When the dam was built, there were 9 Million People living in california. Today, we are pushing 40 Million People. A lot more people, same amount of water. When you add Global Warming to the components, we have to deal with less water in different places and we still have all these people that need water, so i think all of those things will make facilities like this even more important, and how we manage them and the supply of water even more important. This and otherh programs on the history of communities across the country at www. Cspan. Org citiestour. This is American History to be, only on cspan3. Theounded in 1846, Smithsonian Institution was originally housed in a redstone building on the National Mall known as the castle. Up next, a behind the scenes tour to a space of that is not open to the public with steve berry and curator Richard Stamm. Much of mr. Berrys last work took place here. Richard stamm is the author of the castle. He illustrated history of the smithsonian building. We met our tour guide in the crypt of the institutions founder. This is about 40 minutes. Steve i am steve berry. I am here with Richard StammRichard Stamm