1870s view of the Canton Valley, now submerged beneath the waters of Canyon Ferry Lake. This is the landscape through which the westward-bound Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery passed in July of 1805. The village of Canton, Montana, just north of Townsend, was abandoned and subsequently flooded by the second Canyon Ferry Dam in 1954.

The land shown is the Thomas Cooney ranch. The Cooneys, a notable Helena pioneer family, had the distinction of having to twice move their ranch house to escape rising Canyon Ferry Dam waters. In 1898, they moved to escape Lake Sewell, the modest lake formed by the first Canyon Ferry Dam. In 1949, construction of the massive new Canyon Ferry Dam required a second move to higher ground.

Early photograph of White's City, a small placer gold-mining settlement in the Big Belt Mountains, thirteen miles east of the present-day Canyon Ferry Dam. COURTESY OF DAN DUKE

By 1865, gold was being recovered from numerous stream-bottoms in Big Belt gulches, and was also being found in gravel bars along the Missouri River, most abundantly from French Bar, located 1.25 miles below the present dam.

Among the men who mined the riverbanks for gold was Thomas Cooney, Jr., son of the pioneer rancher. Tom is shown below with his under-construction gold dredge "The Emma". Workers can be seen on the frame of the dredge.

On May 24, 1949, construction of the present Canyon Ferry Dam began, and was completed June 23, 1954. The first power unit began operating December 18, 1953, and two others began operating in March 1954. The old Canyon Ferry Dam and power plant were dismantled prior to the completion of the new, with some remnants being submerged.

Unlike the first dam, this one was not built with private funds, but with federal Bureau of Reclamation dollars.

The doomed Hauser Dam, built from 1905-07. Another project of Samuel T. Hauser and associates, this dam was funded primarily by the Amalgamated Copper Company (later the Anaconda Company), who needed vast amounts of cheap electricity to modernize their mines in Butte and Anaconda, which were then running on locally steam-generated electricity.

Despite the strong objections of his engineer, Martin Gerry, Hauser chose a design for a steel dam, which proved inadequate against the power of the Missouri. The dam failed on August 14, 1908 when currents undermined its foundation, which rested on water-impregnated gravel. The steel plates crumpled, and a 300' wide breach opened within minutes, sending a torrent of water downstream. It took the wall of water several hours to reach the town of Craig, which made notification and evacuation possible. Railroad tracks, bridge approaches and telegraph lines were wiped out. Several buildings in Craig were washed off their foundations. Great Falls received 7' floodwaters the next day, but fortunately no lives were lost in the dam break or the resulting flood.

Samuel Hauser, who was in New York City at the time of the disaster, was nearly ruined financially. Amalgamated withdrew their financial support for Hauser's Missouri River projects, and set about acquiring the Great Falls Winter Power and Townsite Company. By 1910 creditors took control of Hauser's Missouri River interests. In 1912, Butte Electric, which had been supplying steam-generated electricity to Amalgamated, merged with the Great Falls company to form the Montana Power Company, which still operates Hauser Dam.