The reason for our stopover in Kingman was to make a visit to the Hoover Dam which was only 75 miles away. A short drive in US terms. We had been there when we visited Las Vegas in 2018 but did not had enough time to vist the Dam museum or go on the powerplant tour.
A bit of trivia before the history: who is the Dam currently named after and what was its original name? The options for who the Dam is currently named after are; 1. J Edgar Hoover; 2. Herbert Hoover and 3. Henry the Hoover. No clues for the original name but it relates to a city close by.
The Hoover Dam was built in the Black Canyon on the Colorado River between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and straddles the state line between Nevada and Arizona. It was inaugrated on the 30 September 1935 by President Franklin D Rooseveldt.
Since about 1900, the US Government had been invesigating whether Black Canyon, Boulder Canyon or other spots along the Colorado river had the potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power. The US Congress authorised the project in 1928 and a consortium of six companies won the bid to build the Dam and with great imagination called themselves “Six Companies, Inc.”
The Museum gave a good overview of the construction of the Dam and the challenges that such a big project gave, as nothing had been done on this scale before. New building techniques had to be trialled. For instance, to aid the non-stop construction they built with concrete in block sections which also hastened the drying of the wet concrete.
Workers from all over America and beyond came to try and get employment during the Great Depression although only circa 6,000 were working on the Dam at any one time. Boulder City which is near the Dam was built to house the workers as the site was remote in the 1930s. Some of the jobs were extremely dangerous and there were fatalities from various causes: falls from the canyon side, explosions, carbon monoxide poisoning and pneumonia, to name a few.
These days we are used to hearing how major infrastructure projects are over budget and running late but Six Companies turned the Dam over to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule.
Once the Dam was built, the body of water above the Dam took six to seven years to reach its final height and was named Lake Mead. It is the largest reservoir in the United States by volume when full although, due to the current drought in the southwestern United States, is dangerously low near to the level where it would not give enough water to turn the turbines for electricity generation.
The Dam’s generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona and California. As the road over the Dam was being used heavily, a bridge has been built nearby to take the Interstate 93 traffic. The roadway on the bridge is nearly 900 feet above the Colorado River.
The Dam is operated by the US Bureau of Reclamation and is 726 feet high and 1,244 feet long. At the base it is 660 feet wide but only 45 feet wide at the top. It cost apparently USD 49 million to build.
One interesting consequence of the water levels of Lake Mead dropping so low is that 2 bodies have recently been found which police believe could have been in the lake since the 1970s or 80s.
If you are in Kingman or Las Vegas the Dam is worth a visit, but if you go on the organised tours from Las Vegas you don’t get much time at the Dam, so self-drive is best.
The answers to the trivia questions above is firstly, Herbert Hoover (unfortunately not Henry the Hoover) and secondly, The Boulder Dam.
Copyright: words and photos John Cruse 2022