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Of all the Pick-Sloan dams on the Missouri River, Gavins Point was the least likely to be built.
Even at the time ground was broken in April 1952, the House Appropriations Committee tried to kill the project by cutting off funds. That it was built at all is due in part to Kim Il Sung, the president of North Korea, and to another major flood that swept down the river in April 1952.
One of the problems for Congress was that plans for the Gavins Point project had been modified several times. And each change came with a higher price tag. From the time the dam was approved until it was built, the cost escalated from $15 million to more than $60 million.
The original plan called for a low earth and concrete dam built eight miles up river from Yankton at a place called Gavins Point.
The purpose of this dam was flood control and navigation.
Glenn Sloan opposed the construction of Gavins Point dam entirely. In testimony before a Senate subcommittee in 1944, Sloan said the dam was completely unnecessary, that it had no value for flood control, and that electric power produced at Gavins Point would cost 30 to 40 times as much as at any other dam. He said the same thing about the proposed Garrison dam.
Part of the problem was the location. The Gavins Point site was able to accommodate only a low dam with a maximum head of 25 feet. (The head is the difference between the water level behind the dam and the river below the dam).
According to Lewis Pick there was such a thick layer of sand on the river bottom at the Gavins Point site that the concrete part of the dam would have to be built on wooden pilings. And if the level in the reservoir should exceed 25 feet, water was likely to percolate through the sand and cause complete failure of the dam.
By 1949 the Army Corps of Engineers had a new plan. The proposed dam at Gavins Point would be built about four miles downriver at Calumet Bluff – a tall cliff where Lewis and Clark met for the first time with the Yankton Sioux Indians.
Instead of a dam with a 25-foot head built on wooden pilings, the new dam would have a 45-foot head and rest on solid chalk rock. Although there were several proposals to change the name of the dam because it would no longer be built at Gavins Point, it was decided to retain the old familiar name. Hence, the dam at Calumet Bluff still would be called Gavins Point.
The high dam would have a reservoir 30 miles long instead of 15, would impound 32,000 acres of water instead of 13,000, and would be able to generate four times as much electricity as the low dam.
This was only a fraction of the power expected to be generated by the much larger dam at Fort Randall. But when the turbines at Fort Randall were operating at full capacity, the large volume of water flowing through the powerhouse might create surges in the river below the dam. These surges could cause bank erosion and destabilize the 9-foot navigation channel that was being constructed below Sioux City. So, even if Gavins Point was not needed for flood control, it was needed to smooth out the surges from Fort Randall.
Then, in June 1950, Kim Il Sung ordered North Korean forces to invade South Korea. Another war – or police action as it was called – was underway.
President Harry Truman was aware that trouble was brewing in the Far East even before the Korean War broke out. In order to divert the money for defense, Truman issued an order halting all new projects on the Missouri River.
“President Truman‘s dictum is a blow to hopes for a dam at Yankton,“ said the Omaha World-Herald. But by the end of the year, it was thought that Gavins Point might be an exception due to the need for more electricity to meet wartime needs. Truman’s Assistant Secretary of the Interior, C.G. Davidson, remarked that “anywhere you can get 100,000 kilowatts of power you can build an aluminum plant.”
In February 1951, Federal Budget Director Frederick Lawson told area congressmen that, due to new factors in the nation’s power needs, he would take another look at the proposed Gavins Point Dam.
Lawson said that Gavins Point was needed to get maximum power out of Fort Randall. Fort Randall would be unable to produce more than 120,000 kilowatts of its 320,000 kilowatt capacity unless Gavins Point was built to level out the discharges through the powerhouse.
The House Appropriations Committee did not agree. Citing the need to conserve money for the war, Gavins Point would get nothing. The Senate Appropriations Committee, however, ignored the House cuts and allocated $4.5 million to start construction.
The Senate and the House committees then met in conference and negotiated a compromise that split the difference.
In October, President Truman signed into law a $587 million appropriations bill which provided $2 million for construction of Gavins Point. “Construction is expected to start in the spring,” said the Omaha World-Herald.
In January 1952, bids were solicited for building an access road to the site and also to purchase three 54,000 horsepower turbines. In February, the land on Calumet Bluff where the powerhouse was to be built was purchased.
In March, bids were solicited for the first stage of construction of the dam’s earthen embankment. Groundbreaking ceremonies were set for Sunday, May 18, 1952.
Then, toward the end of March, the House Appropriations Committee struck again. More than $200 million was cut from the Corps of Engineers civil projects. The money for the proposed dams at Oahe and Fort Randall was slashed 20 percent.
The money for Gavins Point was totally eliminated. “Chairman of the House Committee Clarence Cannon (D-Mo) has expressed little sympathy for the construction at Gavins Point,” said the Omaha World-Herald of April 1, 1952.
