This day in history: Plans for High Mountain Sheep Dam along Snake River nixed. Man dies falling from hotel room window

From 1976: After 18 years of controversy, the High Mountain Sheep Dam in Hell’s Canyon on the Snake River was pronounced dead.

The Federal Power Commission ruled out the dam’s construction, as well as two competing proposals on the Snake River. This was a long-fought victory for the Sierra Club, the Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs, the Idaho Alpine Club and Washington state’s Department of Ecology.

All of the groups filed a joint petition for dismissing the dam applications – a petition also supported by the Idaho Fish and Game Department.

The Federal Power Commission’s ruling was based on the principle that the Hell’s Canyon National Recreation Area Act forbids “the construction of any dam, water conduit, reservoir, powerhouse transmission line … within the recreation area.”

From 1926: Bessie Kuettle, of Pomeroy, Washington, was almost asleep at 4 a.m. at the Coeur d’Alene Hotel when she was “startled by a scream and the sound of a dull thud.”

She rushed to the window and saw “a dark form lying in the alley.” She looked up at the windows of the neighboring Seattle Hotel and saw nothing unusual, nor did she see anyone else in the alley. She called police because the dark form was not moving.

When police arrived, they found Frank Nelson, 48, a “truck helper,” lying unconscious with a skull fracture. He was pronounced dead at the emergency hospital.

At first police thought he might have been a homicide victim, but when they discovered his Seattle Hotel room locked and bolted from the inside, they considered an accident more likely, believing he had fallen from his hotel room window.

The night clerk said Nelson “had been drinking considerably of late, but that he was sober when he came into the hotel that night.”