PPL Montana’s Ryan Dam Hosts Lewis and Clark Milestone

On June 13, 1805, Capt. Meriwether Lewis, traveling with a small advance party, heard “a roaring too tremendous to be mistaken” and saw in the distance mist rising from the Great Falls of the Missouri River.

That same spray and roar created by the falls greeted several hundred Lewis and Clark history buffs who gathered at PPL Montana’s Ryan Dam Monday (6/13) to commemorate the bicentennial of one of the pivotal points of the Corps of Discovery’s legendary journey and exploration of the western United States.

“It was thrilling to see a Meriwether Lewis re-enactor, dressed in period buckskin, appear from a rocky ridge high above the dam to recreate what it must have been like to first see the power and beauty of the Great Falls,” said Russ Dunn, manager of operations and maintenance at Great Falls for PPL Montana. “It was great to bring so many people here to see how the falls are used to produce safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy and show our company’s support of our state’s rich history.”

The event was part of the national Lewis and Clark Signature Series being held to mark the bicentennial of the journey to the Pacific Coast.

In his journal, Lewis described the falls as a “truly magnificent and sublimely grand object, which has from the commencement of time been concealed from the view of civilized man.” The route around the series of falls presented one of the greatest obstacles faced by the expedition. Lewis and Clark had believed the trip around the falls would take a week at most. It ended up taking a month.

Ryan Dam, on the Missouri River 10 miles northeast of the city of Great Falls, offers visitors good views of the Corps of Discovery’s original route, a sense of the size of the river and the falls and the effort it must have required for Lewis and Clark and their party to navigate around the falls.

PPL Montana works in concert with the National Park Service, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, the Bureau of Land Management, the Conservation Fund, the U.S. Forest Service and the Richard King Mellon Foundation to protect and preserve the Great Falls Portage National Historic Landmark. The area was designated in 1966 to commemorate Lewis and Clark’s travel around the five falls of the Missouri River in the summer of 1805.

In addition to Ryan Dam, PPL Montana operates the Cochrane, Ryan, Morony, Black Eagle and Rainbow dams on the Missouri River at Great Falls.