The goals of the local office were loftier than the actual facility: to eliminate impediments to navigation in the region's rivers and to obtain a precise knowledge of the territory.

During the next three decades, Corps engineers surveyed local rivers and rapids, and provided dredging, snagging, rock removal and bank protection.

In 1902, construction was begun on a canal at the four waterfalls between The Dalles and Celilo – the sole remaining block to open river navigation for the 407 miles (655 km) upriver from the mouth of the Columbia to the current site of the Priest Rapids Dam.

Bonneville Dam construction generated thousands of needed jobs and a new era of prosperity for upstream ports, offsetting the impact of the Great Depression.

World War II gave Portland District a share of the military construction program—building training camps, air bases and defense installations in the Northwest.

The slackwater pool behind the dam flooded rock obstructions in the old open river channel and made irrigation of the adjacent land more economical.

The District's future is tied to helping to balance the region's competing needs for navigation, flood damage reduction, hydropower, fish and wildlife habitat, disaster recovery, irrigation and recreation.

Flood damage reduction has improved since the days when the Willamette and the Columbia overflowed their banks almost yearly, laying watery waste to whole communities.

Although the 1996 flood devastated many areas of Oregon and Washington, it would have been much worse if the Corps hadn't been able to store water behind their dams as it poured into the rivers from uncontrolled tributaries.

With 22 multiple-purpose projects, Portland District produces 60 percent of the region's hydropower to meet the growing demands of public and private utilities, cities and industry.

Portland District regulates work in water and fragile wetland areas along waterways and in wildlife habitat to preserve the environment.

When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, the effects on water quality and on the natural recovery of fish, wildlife and plant species were of primary concern in the Corps' response.

After the Exxon Valdez ran aground, District dredges recovered nearly 400,000 gallons of oil from the waters of Alaska's Prince William Sound.

Models of Columbia River projects, like those at the Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg, Miss., are helping the Corps find answers and make changes that will work for fish.