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
Birch Coulee Battlefield edge is a steep wooded ravine, a landform known locally by the French term "coulee," also spelled "coulie" or "cooley." Birch Coulee, known to the Dakota as "Tanpa Yukan" (Place of the White Birch), is deep and runs for a total of down to the Minnesota River. A few hundred yards to the west of the coulee, the prairie rises slightly onto a gentle knoll. On September 1, 1862, a burial detail of about 170 Union Army volunteers and civilians under Major Joseph R. Brown camped on the prairie west of Birch Coulee. The site was selected by Captain Hiram