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Surveying for what was first called the Foster Creek Dam and Powerhouse occurred in 1942. Funding from the River and Harbor Act of 1946 paid for initial construction costs, with work beginning in 1949. The Columbia River's serious flooding in 1948 (the second-worst flood in modern times) added urgency to finance and start construction. All concrete for the dam and intake structures had been set in place by 1955. Dedication of the dam structure occurred in 1956. Sixteen turbines and accompanying generating equipment were put in place between 1955-1958. Maintenance of spillways proved to be problematic during the Chief Joseph's Dam early years. The Corps of Engineers web site described it: "During construction, when the Corps removed spillway cofferdams, the river ran through low concrete sections of the spillway across the stilling basin. Gravel and rock began eroding the concrete spillway, stilling basin floor and energy dissipaters. Erosion was progressive and the main structure was at risk of being undermined. Traditional repair would have meant an expensive two-stage dewatering of the stilling basin, reducing operation of Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams. However, in 1959, district engineers developed a unique underwater system to repair flat surfaces, and two engineers became Navy hard hat divers to facilitate and inspect underwater activities. Engineers came from around the world to learn the technique. The work was completed at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods." (See "History of the Dam,"Accessed 07/14/2011.)

In 2011, the Chief Joseph facility near Bridgeport, WA, was second largest hydro-electric power producing dam in the United States.

The US Army Corps of Engineers finished 11 more turbines at the Chief Joseph facility between 1973-1979. This project, costing $300 million, enabled the production of 2,481,750 additional kilowatts of power by the early 1980s. Between 1989-1994, the Corps of Engineers retrofitted the turbines to improve their efficiency by 6.83%.

PCAD id: 16647