Little Falls Tie Line Towers, Near Little Dam Falls on Spokane River, Wellpinit, Stevens County, WA

Significance: The Little Falls Tie Lint Towers are significant as components of one of the trans-Mississippian West's earliest steel tower transmission lines. This system distributed electrical power from The Washington Water Power Company's Little Falls Dam (a National Register of Historic Places property, 12/15/88) to the Spokane vicinity of eastern Washington, beginning in the early twentieth century. Its construction pioneered the use of steel towers for electrical transmission by utilizing modular units adapted from existing technologies of the U.S. windmill industry. In terms of engineering, the towers are unique as examples of the evolution in long distance transmission lines from wooden poles to metal structures, which facilitated regional hydroelectric development and resulted in wide-scale distribution of electrical power at affordable rates to urban Spokane and its outlying rural geographical region.
Survey number: HAER WA-82