Albeni Falls

This is the contents of one of the information displays at the visitor centre at Albeni Falls Dam.

The Falls

The Falls in 1887

As you look down at the Pend Oreille (Pond O'Ray) River and Albeni Falls Dam (Albany) you may be looking for the falls. In 1887 a 26 year-old French Canadian farmer living in Blanchard, Idaho, also wondered where the falls were. Hoping to discover the falls, Albeni Poirier travelled north by foot and cayuse (Indian pony). He located the falls and was so captivated by their beauty he built a log cabin at the site from which he first saw them.

This site is directly across and downstream from where you are standing.

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On the far left is Albeni Poirier's hotel and eating place. In the centre is his homesteaders log cabin as it looked in 1894. The saloon with the dance hall upstairs is in the lower right, with the first school house in the area on the upper right.

Albeni built and operated a hotel and eating place used by hunters, fishermen and gold prospectors. He added a barn and a combined saloon, dance hall and blacksmith shop after the Great Northern Railroad completed its link to Troy, Montana in 1892. Fishing and picnicking excursions to the falls became popular Sunday activities with travellers riding the train from Spokane, Washington. It is said that many people couldn't pronounce his last name, Poirier (Pwa ree ay) so his first name was used to name the falls - Albeni Falls

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A Great Norhtern Railway train which bought folks from Spokane to Albeni Falls.

The Dam

Albeni Falls became Albeni Falls Dam in 1955. The region had experienced an increased need for water storage and power production to support the growing shipbuilding and aluminium industries downstream. To meet these growing needs Congress authorized the dam in 1950, and construction began in 1951. A log chute was included as logdrives on the river were still common practice. Boommen stoon on floating log booms poking and prying the logs through the chute to flow downstream to the mills.

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The first raft of logs being poked through the log chute and pryed through the log chute by the "boommen" on August 20, 1953.

Looking down upon the site of the original falls you see the dam and powerhouse. Storing water for power production, Albeni Falls Dam is an important link in the Columbia River hydropower system.