Grant County history

The original (and much larger) Douglas County had been created in 1883 when the Washington Territorial Legislature formed Lincoln and Spokane counties from a larger Spokane County, then separated the new Lincoln County into Lincoln and Douglas Counties only a few days later.

Attempts to formally irrigate Grant County began as early as 1898, although most efforts were relatively modest.

Established in February of 1909, Grant County is named after President Ulysses S. Grant.

In 1914, for example, Washington voters were asked to consider a $44 million bond issue that would have created a water pumping system for 435,000 acres in an around Quincy.

In the spring of 1917 this group was discussing how local farmers could better aid America’s soldiers in World War I, when it was suggested that a dam might be constructed on the Columbia River at Grand Coulee, formed some 15,000 years before during the last ice age.

Despite a 1920 legislative study that recommended the gravity plan over the Grand Coulee plan, the Ephrata group and its supporters pushed on and eventually waged the more successful public and political campaign.

In 1933, the United States Congress authorized the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam and the Columbia Basin Project.

Meanwhile, the Grand Coulee Dam project was gradually expanded and moved toward completion, with its first generator going on line in October 1941.

The Grant County Historical Society is a member-owned, volunteer driven organization which incorporated as a 501c3 Not for Profit charitable institution in 1950.

The positive effects of the Columbia Basin Reclamation Project were felt as early as 1951, when The Wenatchee Daily World announced that the sugar beet yield in and around Moses Lake -- approximately 25 tons per acre – was twice the national average.

1; W. Gale Matthews, “Beginnings of the Columbia Basin Reclamation Project,” 1952 typescript, Grant County Historical Society, Ephrata, Washington; “A Brief Geological Description of the Columbia Basin Project,” ca.

In 1965, the base was decommissioned and the property became the Port of Moses Lake, the home of Grant County International Airport.