Waterpower attracted the attention of the earliest Europeans to the site of Willamette Falls. John McLoughlin laid a claim to land at base of the Falls as early as 1829.  Listed as the second largest waterfall in North America based on water volume, in the Northwest, the falls only outdone by those at Celilo and Kettle on the Columbia.  Both of those waterfalls now drowned by reservoirs backed up behind dams – The Dalles Dam and Grand Coulee Dam.  Willamette Falls is also the site of the first hydroelectric plant built in the Northwest – 1888.  From here, transmission lines stretched north to Portland fourteen miles to the north.  These lines represented the first transmission of electricity in the United States.  At the time, about the only thing using the generated power consisted of streetlights in the city, but trolley systems quickly came into use.

HYDROPOWER

FLOODS

Two hydroelectric plants developed at the falls for use of electricity used away from the direct vicinity (Other plants became created to take care of the needs of the local mills).   The first became located along the Oregon City side atop part of Abernathy Island.  Named Station A by the developers, Willamette Falls Electric Company, the plant boasted of four brush arc light dynamos producing 5,000 watts of direct current power. 

A major problem with electricity at the time was power lost in transmitting power offsite.  The company converted the current into a stronger volt current for transmission which reconverted into the original voltage at the site of usage.  From the 5,000 watts, they obtained 4,000 watts via six heavy copper wires in Portland lighting some 55 streetlights.

Floods always figure strongly into any history of Oregon City and Willamette Falls.  1890 brought a big flood to the Falls.  Station A need to shut down due to water damage.  Thomas W. Sullivan was the design and operating engineer working on the Willamette Pulp & Paper Mill across the river.  The flood did little damage to his mill and Willamette Falls Electric Company put him to work to repair Station A.  He worked for the company – becoming part of Portland General Electric in 1892 – as the chief hydraulic engineer for the rest of his life.

sTATION B

The electric company gave Sullivan a new task in 1893.  A new plant, Station B, developed across the river coming to completion in 1895. This plant featured production of alternating current much easier to transmit over distances.  Station B was the largest generating plant in Oregon at the time and still produces 16.9 MW of power enough to power 11,000 households today.

Sullivan’s family came from Ireland with him only two years of age.  Growing up in New York, he worked and studied to become a civil and structural engineer.  Remington Paper Company hired him to design one of America’s first sulfite paper mills. 

STENCH OF THE PAPER MILLS

Sulfite process became the main process for paper production in the late 19^th century.  Wood pulp is changed into cellulose through chemical means – main ingredients being sulfurous acid and calcium bisulfite.  A competing process – sulfate or kraft process – superseded much of the papermaking industry by the mid-20^th century.  Sulfite mills are also obvious from the smell.  Sulfur compound emissions result from both papermaking processes, but chemical retention techniques used with the kraft process results in far fewer emissions.

Paper mills need lots of water to run their operations.  Formerly, much of the wastage simply flushed downriver, though today, the effluents undergo treatment before release.  The falls attracted paper mills from the early days of industrialization around the cataracts.  Oregon City Paper Manufacturing Company, the first, began in 1866.

THOMAS W. SULLIVAN

Willamette Pulp & Paper brought Sullivan and his family to Oregon in 1889 to build a papermaking plant on the West Linn side of the Falls.  Even after jumping over to PGE, Sullivan would continue to work constructing paper mills both at the Falls and helping his son design a mill in British Columbia.  A strong force within the community, as well, Sullivan served one term as Oregon City mayor in the early 1890’s.  Dying in 1940, he lies today at the St. John’s Catholic Cemetery.

Station B was renamed the T.W. Sullivan Plant in Sullivan’s honor in 1953.  Amidst the industrial conglomeration surrounding both banks downriver from the Falls, the hydroelectric plant does not obviously stand out.  The papermills are mostly shuttered today, though Willamette Falls Paper Company continues to try and make a go of it today employing a few over a hundred employees creating envelopes from three papermaking machines.  The paper mills used to employ thousands until the latter part of the 20^th century.

WILLAMETTE FALLS DAM

To create a stable source of power for the hydro plant a short-height – 6 to 20-foot-high – concrete dam dates to the early 20^th century, renovated in 1943.  The power of the river is constantly at work on the little dam which impounds a reservoir of 1,991 acres.  The dam sits atop the horseshoe-shaped Falls.  Part of the Willamette Pulp & Paper Mill was built up atop the dam.  The paper mill buildings surround the hydro plant making it a bit difficult to pick out from the Oregon City side.  Inside the plant are 13 turbine-generators with a capacity of 16.9 Mw. 

Initially, dam works – built of timbers – erected on the Oregon City side to created a basin for steamboats.  Earlier, steamboats docked at Canemah, a little further upriver.  Goods then became transshipped via a portage road below the Falls.  The boat basin made the journey that much closer. 

The timbers were replaced with concrete in 1907 though some timber sections remained until a 1942 flood flushed these away.  The following year, concrete sections replaced the timbers covering a 600-foot section including spillways.  The Falls stretches across 1,500 feet at the widest part of the horseshoe.  Atop the Falls, the dam winds around covering 2,950 feet.

HIGH WATER

Volume of the Willamette River varies dramatically with the season.  Both the electric plants and mills always subject to winter flooding.  Once a decade, the weather sets up so that a big snow dump followed by warmer rains overfill the Willamette Valley.  Here, the river funnels through the canyon obliterating the Falls during big flood events.  Beyond damaging Oregon City directly downstream of the Falls, the floods always caused problems with mills trying to tap into all of that waterpower.

Station A proved to be right in the line of sight for the floods.  The foundations remain tied to the dam with both still owned by PGE.  The walkway out to the former hydropower plant is going to be a centerpiece of a new Riverwalk taking visitors out for an up-close look at the Falls.  After the 1890 flood, the turbines of Station A converted to power pulping operations for the then Hawley Paper Mill A.  Those turbines lasted until a flood at the end of 1964. 

WILLAMETTE FALLS UP CLOSE

There is another foundation closer to the Falls which will serve as the actual observation point.  This was the site of another smaller power plant serving the Blue Heron Mill directly.  That plant demolished and removed early in the 2000’s.

Besides the foundations serving for the new walkway, on the downstream side, the outtake tubes from the turbines are still visible, a look to the past. 

There are small piers sticking upstream from the former plant that must have served to keep floating debris away from the turbine inlets.  Before the plant went in, a timber dam existed on this side creating a basin for small steamboats to dock at.  Where the final observation point is, seems to earlier served as a drydock for the little steamships, too.  Water coursed from the basin, as well, directly into the Blue Heron-Publishers Printing-Hawley paper mill for various needs of the mill.

The walkway circles around the circular clarifier of the former papermill.  Clarifiers serve to remove solids from the waste stream of the mill.  Solids settling on the bottom are raked out and floating solids get skimmed off the surface.  Wastewater free of most solids is then sent for biological treatment.  There is some question of the future for the Blue Heron clarifier.  One proposal is to turn it into an outdoor theater, a theater in the round, though the final proposal transforms the clarifier into a large planter using native plantings.

ACROSS THE RIVER

On the West Linn side, a dam of sorts began in the 1870’s to provide a way for constant water to course through the new shipping locks – four – built for boats to get up and down the Falls with.  The dam then extended to provide a constant flow of water for Station B.  Water backed up behind the dam includes 17,000 acre-feet of water extending upstream for six miles – Newberg Pool.

A lot of work went into modifying the powerhouse and dam allowing fish movement past the Falls and power turbines.  Previously, fish could only migrate during times of high water.  Today, reports note some 99% of migrating fish make their way through the plant safely.  The plant is certified as a low impact hydro project, a certification extended to only 5% of American plants.

T.W. SULLIVAN PLANT

From the Oregon City side, Station B – T.W. Sullivan Plant – is recognizable by its red outlet tubes at the bottom of the plant.  The plant also features newer metal siding and a metal roof in contrast to all of the concrete making up the walls of the former and current papermills surrounding it.  The power plant is back in a little cove with papermills on both sides of it.

Station B shut down in 1952 to rebuild and modernize the plant.  Opened a year later with its new name, the plant features 13 turbine generators – 11 from the 1953 rebuild and 2 from 1924.  Today, the powerhouse is automated.  Control is from the PGE Faraday Complex just up the Clackamas River from the town of Estacada.  PGE’s main hydroelectric generation today comes from powerhouses built along the Clackamas.  

MILL A

Looking across the river, the mill to the left – Mill A – went up in the 1920’s on an island – Moore’s Island – with the dam forming the upriver walls.  At the bottom of this mill, sixteen penstocks delivered water to twelve turbines used to grind pulp while another four turbines produced electricity for the plant.  The original grinder generators date to 1907 while those converted to power generation date to about 1920.  The last power generated in 1992 with concrete plugs sealing the penstocks in 1996.

Mill A was not the first structure built atop the top next to the power plant.  Recently, the oldest of the mills on Moore’s Island adjacent to the PGE plant suffered demolition due to structural problems.  This was Mill J built in 1895.  It housed two paper machines which worked up until the 1980’s.  There are movements afloat to mirror developments on the Oregon City side with potential tours of Mill A, the locks and the T.W. Sullivan plant.  Mill A will not operate again with its machinery gutted and sold off.

papermaking today at the falls

The present papermaking mill runs downstream of the power plant.  Pulp is no longer ground up from logs floated in but shipped in by truck.  Grinding the logs up required the sulfite process to further prepare the wood for papermaking.  Large towers on the downstream side from the electric plant used to hold acids used to reduce the wood pulp.  Without the sulfite process, the old stench of the mills has gone.  What steam you see coming off the renewed mill comes from steam generated to provide power.  Straw is also re-used today to make paper in the new plant.