The year 2001 marks the 100 year milestone for the Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery in Underwood, Washington. The event will be formally celebrated on Saturday, September 8, 2001. The hatchery staff and the Centennial Committee invites you to be a guest at the ceremony. The event will include all day educational activities, formal ceremony beginning at 10:30, viewing of adult Tule fall chinook salmon, hatchery tours, tribal cultural demonstrations, official U.S. Postal cancellation station, Migration Golf miniature golf course, storytelling and much more.
Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery has successfully raised the indigenous Tule fall chinook salmon, without any major influx of outside genetic material, since its inception in 1901. The hatchery started out quite by accident when a box of incubating eggs spilled into the cool springs bubbling out of the basalt cliffs near Underwood, Washington. Several years later, adult salmon trying to jump back into the springs from the Columbia River created the Big White Substation. The hatchery changed its name to the Underwood Station in 1944 and would later become the Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery in 1951.
The original hatchery was flooded when Bonneville Dam was completed in 1938. After several modifications, the hatchery was redesigned and rebuilt by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1972. Expansion was undertaken to partially compensate for the loss of fall chinook spawning grounds due to dam construction on the Columbia River. Today Spring Creek raises over 15 million Tule fall chinook salmon annually. These salmon are a major contributor to the commercial, tribal and sports fisheries in the ocean and Columbia River. The Tule fall chinook are also an indicator species for the U.S./Canada Treaty.
For further information or questions regarding the Centennial or accomodations, please call the Columbia Gorge Information and Education Office at 509-538-2242, or email cheri_anderson@fws.gov"> You can also check out our website at www.r1.fws.gov
