August 24, 1935- Most Beautiful Village in U.S. Rising at Quoddy Project
The Washington Daily News—Saturday—August 24,—1935
Most Beautiful Village in U.S. Rising at Quoddy Project
By Ernie Pyle
(Second of a series of four on big tide-harnessing power project.)
EASTPORT, Me.—The Passamaquoddy tide-harnessing project wasn’t approved until early this summer. Things have been going like lightning since then.
PWA gave a grant of $10,000,000 for the first year’s work. The Engineer Corps of the U.S. Army was put in charge.
Col. Philip B. Fleming is in command. Capt. Roy B. Lord is second in command, in charge of construction and operations. They spent a month in Washington, going over plans, getting it all in their heads. They didn’t visit or communicate with Eastport. Not a leaf was stirring in this little old town by the sea.
Then, like ghosts, the two Army officers slid into Eastport. Not one single thing had been done on Quoddy. They were starting clean. That was July 1.
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On July 2 Capt. Lord rented every spare building in town for office space, and had carpenters at work. On July 3 they moved in, and Quoddy was under way. On the same day, Col. Fleming started buying land. So far, not a single piece of land in the project area has had to be condemned. Things are sailing smoothly.
Today there are more than 1000 people at work. About 200 of them are in the technical department, drawing plans, writing reports, etc.
They are in an old warehouse on the waterfront. Flimsy partitions make offices. Draftsmen by the dozen work over their boards in a big room. Girl and men secretaries buzz around. Tanned men in riding pants and boots and flannel shirts, and with maps under their arms, come and go constantly. Typewriters sing, telephones ring, filing cases are filling up. There is great seriousness about it, and excitement in everybody’s eyes, too.
Before you can build a dam, you have to get ready for it.
So, out on a wooded hill, some two miles from Eastport, they are building Quoddy Village. A week ago it was virgin woods and grass. Today hundreds of men and scores of teams and trucks are digging and hauling. Streets are taking shape. Stakes show where houses will be.
Within 45 days from the start, this will be a new city, with people living in it in modern comfort. A city in 45 days! Rome wasn’t built in a day, no, but Rome wouldn’t believe the story about Quoddy Village.
There will be scores of houses, hospital, playground, stores; everything that a city should have. Two thousand people will be living there in a few weeks. Each house will be of different design, yet in harmony with the topography. It is to be a typical colonial village. Capt. Lord says it will be the most beautiful village, and the most authentically colonial, in America. He ought to know. He has drawn all the plans himself.
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Quoddy Village will be for the technical people and their families—the Army officers, the draftsmen, the supervisors.
Back up the road a mile nearer Eastport, on another hill, great barracks are going up. They’ll be ready in a week, with running water, heat, mess halls and everything. These are for the workmen.
Until this is done, not a shovel will be turned on the project proper. That will start by Sept. 30. And how things will hum then!
They’re going to do this job in two years and a half. At the peak, 10,000 men will be employed. More than two dozen dams will have to be built. Also railroads, power houses, workshops.
A little of it, such as the borings for under-water construction, will be let out on private contract. All the rest, the Army will supervise.
All labor, except technical, comes from the relief rolls. They start right at home, at Eastport, and when that is all used up, they spread out to Bangor and other Maine cities. They’ll make an awful dent in Maine’s army of jobless before it’s all over.
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They haven’t had much trouble getting the reliefers to take jobs. A little, but not much. The county had several small relief projects under way, pretty much of the leaf-raking variety. People got their relief for working two hours a day.
Most of the reliefers signed up with Quoddy, but about 150 would rather take leaves two hours a day than work on the dam all day (rather human emotion, I’d say). So the county just canceled its local projects, and by the next day the 150 were signed on Quoddy.
There are hundreds here trying to get work on the dams. But they won’t. The only way to get on is to register with the re-employment service in your home town. Then the Quoddy project will call you if they need you. But most of the workers will come from Maine. They’ll have to go far away for a few technical workers, but the chances of a jobless man from another state getting work here are slim indeed.
(More on this Monday.)
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