http://www.westernwashington.com/recreation/daytrips/riffelk.php
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http://wildwests.com/Reference%20Material/Time%20passes%20quickly.doc
Kosmos
Though the entire logging town of Kosmos has been submerged under Riffe Lake for 40 years, you can still see the faded white centerline on the highway that once ran right through town.
The road stretches south across the muddy lake bed toward the rubble of the Steffen Creek bridge, dynamited in the 1960s as the Mossyrock Dam was being built about a dozen miles west of here. All that's left of the old Highway 12 bridge is crumpled concrete and rusted metal.
Nowadays this is normally all hidden, the mostly forgotten remains of the bustling town that 77-year-old Don Thayer called home when he was a boy and his father worked in these woods.
The utility, now called Tacoma Power, decided to harness the Cowlitz River to make electricity for homes and businesses 75 miles away. Even then, the dam plan was controversial, and became even more so after federal officials approved a 20-foot increase in the height of Mossyrock Dam in 1964. Those 20 feet doomed both Kosmos and its sister community of Riffe.
From bedrock, the Mossyrock Dam — which was completed in 1968 — looms up 606 feet, making it the tallest dam in the state, even though only the top 365 feet are visible, said Tacoma Power spokesman Pat McCarty. At capacity, the reservoir of Riffe Lake covers nearly 12,000 acres.
"Tacoma wanted the water power, but people here wanted their homes," Thayer said. "It's a piece of history that's now gone."
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