Hello! My name is Nate, and I am one of the graduate assistants for the Atlas of Drowned Towns team. I joined the Atlas quite recently, in early January 2024. I plan to help out with the project until at least the end of the year.
Pacific Northwest born and raised! I am from Boise, Idaho, but have spent time in various places throughout the Pacific Northwest and abroad. I spent about 6 months in Prague, Czech Republic studying there at Charles University. While attending high school, I also lived in several small towns in rural Eastern Oregon. My mother is from Bellevue, Washington, and we visited family there regularly when I was growing up. Additionally, I have family members that live near Portland, Oregon. Really, we have spread out quite a bit through the region. I like to think that my experiences throughout the Pacific Northwest and the world writ large have given me some additional insight and perspective on the lifestyles present in the area during its history.
I received my B.A. in History from Boise State University in 2018 and began as a graduate student there in 2019. During my undergraduate studies, I focused on life under communism in Central Europe, particularly focused on Czechoslovakia. As a graduate student, I have shifted to American history, focusing on what being a citizen means, along with economic and political developments from the Founding until the Great War.
I became interested in drowned towns as a byproduct of a class taught by Professor Bob Reinhardt, a name that should be familiar to those interested in inundated townships and the Atlas of Drowned Towns project. Through that class, we learned about Robinette, Oregon, a town that was flooded by the construction of Brownlee Dam on the Snake River, which constitutes the border between Oregon and Idaho.
To me, drowned towns represent a number of interesting and unique interactions between the United States Government, the citizens it represents, and corporations. Much of the hydroelectric dam construction in the Pacific Northwest began during the Great Depression as public works projects. The work on them continued throughout the 1950s and 1960s, as what could be argued was part of the Cold War. Various dams displaced a number of citizens, while also bringing jobs to the region through their construction, maintenance, and with the relatively cheap electricity after their completion. Once the dams were completed, however, the government often relinquished control of the dam itself or distribution of the electricity created to various state-sanctioned power monopolies, such as Idaho Power. This convoluted interaction between local, state, and federal government actors, the public itself, and private companies represents a truly unique set of circumstances that are just incredibly engaging and worthy of study.
The Atlas of Drowned Towns is a really wonderful public history project and is shining a light on an often-overlooked section of American and Pacific Northwest history. Though I have only just joined, the team’s work before me has been really impressive: gathering new oral histories, collections of photographs, and so much more.
I am very excited to be a part of such a wonderful group doing wonderful work!
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