A Sightseer's Guide to EngineeringNational Society of Professional EngineersNational Engineer's Week
 


In an effort to get a dam across the Grand River, Vinita passed a law requiring all presidential trains to stop if they were passing through. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's whistle-stop re-election tour took him through Vinita in 1936. When his train stopped, FDR was greeted by a banner: "Let's Build Grand River Dam." He okayed funding in 1937.


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OKLAHOMA Printable version
Pensacola Dam
Oklahoma Highway 28, one-half mile east of the junction with Highway 82.
Langley, OK 74301
918/782-9594, 918/256-5545, or 918/782-3382
Web Site
Take a free tour of the power plant and see Oklahoma's oldest hydroelectric turbine generators. 
Hours of Operation: Call for tour days and times or to schedule a tour. Need a map?
Pensacola Dam was Oklahoma's first hydroelectric facility, built 1937-40. It is the world's longest multiple-arch dam, with 51 arches and 21 spillways spanning about one mile across the Grand River. Engineers chose the multiple-arch design because materials were scarce and, therefore, expensive. Labor, on the other hand, was abundant and cheap. Some 3,000 men worked on the project, earning about $16 per week. The dam was built by the Grand River Dam Authority, which the state had created in 1935 for that purpose. The dam impounds 66-mile-long Grand Lake O' the Cherokees, one of the largest reservoirs in the U.S.
 
Who Made It: Massman Construction Company of Kansas City, Mo., was selected by the Grand River Dam Authority as the major contractor for the dam and powerhouse.
 
Photo Credit: Courtesy Grand River Dam Authority