You can see a Huge Turbine at the Bonneville Dam in Oregon

07 November 2022

I took a break from driving to Central Oregon in rough weather and stumbled upon this huge, retired turbine at the Bonneville Dam.

Built in 1960, this turbine generated power at the Bonneville Dam for almost 60 years, until it was replaced in July of 2000.

The turbine stands in front of a visitor center that hosts some interesting exhibits on the history of the Columbia river and the dam itself. The construction of the dam occurred during the Great Depression, and the jobs created eased the hardships suffered in the Pacific Northwest at the time.

Among the non-dam-related exhibits in the visitor center is a beautiful painting of the riverboat J.N. Teal. The J.N. Teal was a “stern-wheeler” type passenger ship built in Portland that sailed the Columbia from 1907 to 1927.

Today the Bonneville Dam supplies almost a half a million homes with electricity.