The Dworshak Dam is located at the old Bruces Eddy site on the North Fork of the Clearwater River. The site was named for Bruce Lipscomb who, in 1877, while working with a Northern Pacific Railroad Company engineering party doing location work in the area, noted that the site was ideal as a potential power development location. In 1953 the Army Corps of Engineers studied the dam project and recommended that a dam be built at the site. The dam, originally called Bruces Eddy, but later changed to Dworshak, in honor of Senator Henry Dworshak, was authorized by Congress in 1962; the ground breaking ceremony was held in September 1966, and the first concrete poured June 22, 1968. The formal dedication was held June 15, 1973.

It was originally planned to be a rock-fill dam, but after further study the engineers decided a concrete dam would be better. It is the largest dam of its type built by the Corps of Engineers; it is 717 feet high, the base is 525 feet, and it is 30 feet wide and 3,300 feet long at the top. The lake behind the dam is 53 miles long.

The material in this series includes general information on dams in the northwest, a folder of Bonneville Power Administration material, maps, and brochures on northwest dams. .The majority of the material concerns Dworshak Dam and includes correspondence, newspaper clippings, brochures, maps, statements and memos of A.B. Curtis regarding the dam, Army Corps of Engineers material, material on the relocation of the air strip, roads and bridges, and material on the protests of various wildlife interest groups. Also present are the programs for the ground breaking ceremony, the concrete pouring and the dedication.

Listed below is a brief description of the contents of each folder. The file cards prepared for this series give names of correspondents, titles of articles, titles of maps, etc.