A ten-part series read from public-domain federal records: the National Park Service historic resource study of water-level regulation in the Rainy Lake watershed, and the Government Printing Office transcripts of International Joint Commission hearings. Every statute, date and order is checked against the record before publication.
Read from the 1986 National Park Service water-level study: how the Kettle Falls dam became Docket #1 of the International Joint Commission, and why the commission's April 18, 1913 decision declined it.
Read from the 1986 National Park Service study and Warren Upham’s 1920 gazetteer: what the Ontario contracts required of the Falls dam, what was built, and how the river changed by 1911.
The Historic Resource Study records Roosevelt's April 13, 1908 veto of a time-extension bill for the Rainy River dam, and the Canadian enactments and irregularities beside it.
A 1986 National Park Service study traces the four acts of Congress, two Ontario contracts, and two Canadian statutes Edward Backus needed for his Rainy River dam, 1898-1906.
The first instalment of How the Falls Got Its Dam draws on a National Park Service study and a 1917 IJC transcript to introduce Backus and Oberholtzer.
