The Elwha River Hydroelectric System consists of two dams and
power plants, Elwha and Glines Canyon, and is located on the
northern Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Spearheaded by
Port Angeles resident Thomas T. Aldwell in the 1890s, the Elwha
project typified hydroelectric development in the early
twentieth century. When it came on line for Aldwell's Olympic
Power Company in 1914, the Elwha power plant was the first
hydroelectric facility on the Olympic Peninsula. It supplied
power to most of the region’s residential. commercial and
industrial users, helping to open up the pulp and paper industry
in the region after World War I. To meet the demands of the
rapidly expanding pulp and paper industry in the mid-1920s, the
Northwestern Power and Light Company (the former Olympic Power
Company) built a second power station at Glines Canyon
specifically to supply power to the Washington Pulp and Paper
Company in Port Angeles. The Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries
Restoration Act of 1992 authorized the US Fe