Grand Coulee Dam the plateau. MWAK eventually sold Mason City to Reclamation in 1937 before its contract was completed. In 1956, Reclamation combined both Mason City and Engineer's Town to form the city of Coulee Dam. It was incorporated as a city in . With the onset of World War II, power generation was given priority over irrigation. In 1943, Congress authorized the Columbia Basin Project and the Bureau of Reclamation began construction of irrigation facilities in 1948. Directly to the west and above the Grand Coulee Dam, the North Dam was constructed. This dam, along with the Dry Falls Dam to the
Grand Coulee Dam Wenatchee. Together, they became known as the "Dam College". Woods began promoting the Grand Coulee Dam in his newspaper, often with articles written by O'Sullivan. The dam idea gained popularity with the public in 1918. Backers of reclamation in Central Washington split into two camps. The "pumpers" favored a dam with pumps to elevate water from the river into the Grand Coulee from which canals and pipes could irrigate farmland. The "ditchers" favored diverting water from northeast Washington's Pend Oreille River via a gravity canal to irrigate farmland in Central and Eastern Washington. Many locals such as Woods, O'Sullivan and