The scene in downtown North Platte on the afternoon of Nov. 3, 1933 was a welcome celebration amidst the Great Depression. “Business was virtually at a standstill, and groups congregated up and down the sidewalks and on the street corners. It was reminiscent of Armistice Day in 1918,” a special dispatch to The World-Herald described.

The cause for high spirits? The Platte Valley Public Power and Irrigation District had been approved for a $7.5 million grant and loan from the Public Works Administration for a canal system, reservoirs, and a hydroelectric power station near North Platte. The Sutherland Project, as it was known at the time (North Platte Hydro today), promised to employ more than 1,600 people over a period of two years. The prospect of a project of such magnitude provided hope at a time when unemployment in Nebraska was at 25 percent. 

W. Boyd Jones won the contract to construct the powerhouse for the hydroelectric portion of the project just south of North Platte. Details on the manpower required specifically to construct the project are hard to come by, but press clippings indicate the massive nature of the work: the construction of about 63 miles of canal required 12 contractors, 31 draglines, and 16 million cubic yards of excavation. By comparison, the Gene Leahy Mall overhaul will require 93,000 cubic yards of fill dirt, or one-half of one percent of the volume excavated for the Sutherland Project.

The Sutherland Powerhouse still stands today, representing an enduring legacy of the New Deal-era public works push to help lift the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression. It’s also a testament to our founder’s willingness to adapt to change and challenges by contributing to a critical piece of an effort described by The World-Herald as the “first major P.W.A. power project in the United States.”