Whispers of the past roar like silent falls
Lucille Begay, the grandaughter of Wyam Chief Howard Jim speaks to a Nadia Telles’ seventh grade class about Chief Tommy Thompson, Celilo Village and the once deafening falls.
By Tom Peterson
The Dalles, Ore., May 15, 2025 — Students from The Dalles Middle School received oral history lessons this morning as murals created by the Wall Dogs provided a space in time to relfect on the “Epic stories of people, places and pivotal moments” that shaped our region.
Lucille Begay, above, the granddaughter of Wyam Chief Howard Jim spoke to Teacher Nadia Telles’ class about the imposing figures painted behind her.
They are Chief Tommy Thompson and his inset son and future Cheif Henry Thompson, who both provided leadership at Celilo Village. Chief Tommy and his wife Flora were life-long advocate for their people’s fishing rights, natural resources and their tribes way of life.
Chief Tommy Kuni Thompson. Oregon Historical Society Research Library, Orhi23891
Begay spoke of the Epic Celilo Falls just 13 miles east of The Dalles and of March 10, 1957 when the steal jaws of The Dalles Dam gates shut and the Columbia pooled backward and drowned the banks.
To avoid being submerged in river water, the Celilo Village was previously moved and placed along the foothills to the south, only to be further cut off from the river with the construction of Interstate 84 in the 1960s.
Begay told the students that it took just 4 1/2 hours to flood out the historic falls and fishing grounds that had provided her people for some 11,000 years.
“10,000 people watched,” she said of the day the falls went silent. “Our people were sad, crying and mourning. At 2:30 p.m. the loud falls went quiet."
Nadia Telles’ seventh-grade class takes time out for a group shot with Lucille Begay at the Tommy and Henry Thompson mural on East Third Street.
Here is a photo of Celilo Falls in 1952 and there is an incredible story that goes with the boy, 8-year-old Danny Sampson, caught in the dip net.
