Amenities

Campsite with associated fees. Swimming, boating, water access. Bathrooms and parking available. 

History

Albeni Falls Dam is located on the Pend Oreille River on the site of a natural waterfall called Albeni Falls, named after early pioneer Albeni Poirier. Poirier had arrived in the area in the 1880s and staked a claim adjacent to the waterfall. Not long after, he met his wife Mary, a tourist who had come on the train to see the falls. This site provides a poignant snapshot of Idaho history; in March of 1863, Idaho Territory was established by an Act of Congress, and the progress of the time turned old-growth forests into railroads and money.

Along with the tourists, promoters arrived and suggested damming the river at the waterfall in order to impound the water upstream. The idea did not immediately come to fruition.

Construction on the dam began in 1951 and was completed in 1955 at a cost of $34 million. It produces over 200 million kilowatt hours of electricity each year for the Bonneville Power Administration, and is operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The dam changed the landscape upstream, to the point that the US government paid people as little as $30 per acre for land lost to the rising water.