 The first serious consideration of a dam project was made in a 1954 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers assessment of the resources of the Yukon and <unk> River basin . Engineers considered Rampart Canyon to be a prime site for a hydroelectric dam . In April 1959 , four months after President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Alaska 's declaration of statehood , junior U.S. Senator from Alaska Ernest Gruening passed a resolution calling for the Corps of Engineers to begin an official study of the project , and $ 49 @,@ 000 was allocated by the federal government for that purpose . Preliminary estimates said the project would cost $ 900 million ( 1959 dollars ) and generate 4 @.@ 7 million kilowatts of electricity . At the time , the largest hydroelectric project in Alaska was the <unk> Dam , which produced just 32 @,@ 000 kilowatts . 
