The St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project: An Oral History of the Greatest Construction Show on Earth

3. The Workforce

73 3 TheWorkforce workers who participated in the greatest construction show on earth arrived in Massena with different cultural, educational, religious, and professional backgrounds. While the engineers tended to be college graduates, many of the carpenters and laborers had not finished high school. Some stayed for the duration of the project, while others labored for only a few years and then moved on to another construction job. Uhl, Hall, and Rich and Ontario Hydro supplied housing for their administrators and high-level engineers who relocated to Massena and Cornwall with their families, which enticed them to remain in the area the longest. Furthermore, substantial pay raises solidified their commitment to the project until its completion. The other long-term employees of various contractors on the Seaway and dam sites included local unskilled and skilled workers who were established in the community and had no desire to leave the area. The engineers employed by Uhl, Hall, and Rich arrived in Massena with several years of experience. The Power Authority of the State of New York had hired Uhl, Hall, and Rich to supervise the design and construction of the American half of the Barnhart Island Power Dam, the Long Sault Dam, the Iroquois Dam, and the Massena Intake. Charles T. Main, Incorporated, of Boston, Massachusetts, created the partnership of Uhl, Hall, and Rich to satisfy New York State’s engineering laws. For six decades before the Seaway construction commenced, Main had designed and supervised the construction of hydroelectric plants all over the world and employed the most experienced engineers. The three lead engineers in this new partnership oversaw a design staff in their central office in Boston as well as one hundred engineers 74   |   The St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project and ninety support personnel in Massena. These men had spent their entire careers conducting field studies, and designing and constructing water development projects. William F. Uhl earned a doctorate degree in engineering from Tufts College. His professional credits included serving as a fellow of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and as a consultant on numerous large dam and hydroelectric projects. As chairman of the board of consultants for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), he assisted in designing and constructing many of the key facilities in the Tennessee Valley. Wilfred M. Hall headed the construction unit on the Wheeler Dam for the Tennessee Valley Authority and oversaw water resource development in Puerto Rico for a decade. George R. Rich earned a doctorate in engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and previously held positions at numerous engineering firms including Stone and Webster and the Corps of Engineers. From 1936 to 1945 he served as the chief design engineer for the TVA.1 The office manager and members of the contractor claims team for Uhl, Hall, and Rich had held similar positions on the Boulder Dam and other navigational and power projects under the direction of the Bureau of Reclamation. These men shared their expertise with fellow engineers and skilled workers on the Seaway and Power Project. Some of these individuals served as mentors to entry-level engineers who had recently graduated from college. While being immersed in the design and construction of their first public works project may have been overwhelming at times, the time spent on the Seaway and power dam sites served as an opportunity to put into practice many of the theories that they had learned in the classroom. In the future, this on-the-job experience would lead to their employment by contractors on other large construction projects. These men combined their talents to complete the most complex power dam ever attempted, not only because of its size, but because of the need to coordinate their efforts with their counterparts across the border. They overcame their professional differences to complete the dam on time and under budget. The administrators of the Bureau of Reclamation, an entity established by the United States under the Reclamation Act of 1902, used funds obtained by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior from the sale of public land The Workforce   |   75 in sixteen arid western states to investigate and construct federal irrigation systems to store and supply water to settlers and farmers. The Bureau completed 476 dams and 348 reservoirs, and various supporting tunnels, roads, bridges, and telephone and transmission lines. The Hoover Dam in Nevada and the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in the state of Washington...