As lake refills, history fades again

History revealed by the annual drawdown of Lake Roosevelt will go back into hiding now that spring runoff is refilling the sprawling reservoir.

As it does every year, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation allowed the level of Lake Roosevelt to drop over the winter.

Now it’s time to start refilling the reservoir for the recreation season by letting less water through Grand Coulee Dam. And the refilling shouldn’t take long, since every river in northeastern Washington and North Idaho – many at flood levels – feeds Lake Roosevelt.

The water should rise at the rapid pace of 2 to 3 feet a day, said Lynne Brougher, Bureau of Reclamation public affairs officer.

In recent weeks, with the reservoir at 60 feet below full pool, only two of 22 boat launches in the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area have been usable.

At the same time, the low water revealed some of the 10 town sites that were flooded when Grand Coulee backed up 150 miles of the Columbia River in 1941.

At the old town of Marcus, visitors can see the foundations of houses and more. Street names are still etched in the sidewalks.

“You can see where the Main Street was, First Street, Third Street,” said Debbie House, a teacher at Kettle Falls Elementary School, which sent more than 100 first- and second-graders to visit Marcus last week. “There was a bakery foundation. We were able to see where some of the old railroad tracks were.”

The old town had 3,000 residents and boasted a hospital, school (where House’s grandmother was a student) and opera house, said Fran Bolt, mayor of current-day Marcus. A photograph proves that movie star Claudette Colbert once paid a visit.

The “new” Marcus has just 179 residents, some of whom live in the 30 houses that were moved up the hill in the months before the reservoir started filling.

Soon, the old town will be inundated again, with fish among the foundations and boats overhead.

House said one person from the Kettle Falls Elementary group found a fishing lure during their visit. She assumes they’d have found more if they’d arrived right after the water parted to reveal the town.

“I think some of the fishermen got to them before we did,” she said.