A Brief History

The Boulder Dam Project was conceived with a view to providing water and electricity needs to the arid lands of Nevada and Arizona as well as flood control of the Colorado River. At this time Las Vegas was nothing more than a little dirt town with a few bars.

Hoover Dam was originally to be known as Boulder Dam, this was because it was to be built at Boulder Canyon a few miles upstream on the Colorado River. It was decided that the Dam project should be moved to Black Canyon to capture more water and because the canyon walls were of a much denser rock. Construction of the dam was begun in September 1930 and at that time the USA was in the grip of the great depression. Herbert Hoover who was President at the time had the dam named after himself in an effort to show that he was doing something about the huge unemployment problem.

Before the dam project could begin, construction of homes for the huge workforce and their families, government officials support workers etc. had to be built, this was known as Boulder City. There were also roads and a railroad link built leading to the Dam site.

Actual construction of the dam began on September 30th 1930 and one of the first projects was to divert the mighty Colorado River, this was done by digging four tunnels, two on each side of the canyon to divert the water past the construction site.

The Dam was built in concrete blocks or columns from 25-60 feet (7.26-18.288m) wide. Because of the chemical heat generated by the setting concrete, it could only be placed at up to 5 feet (152.4cm) deep in 72 hours on any 1 block or column. To cool the these huge amounts of concrete 1 inch steel pipes carried ice water through the blocks from a specially constructed ice plant. After the concrete was cooled, grout was forced into the gaps tying the blocks together as one solid structure.

Some Facts about Hoover Dam

The dam took 5 years to build.

About 16,000 people worked on the project and they came from all over the USA.

Hoover Dam is 726.4 feet (221.406m) tall from foundation to the road that runs across the top of the dam. The towers above rise another 40 feet (12.192m). It is 660 feet (201.168m) thick at the base and 45 feet  (13.716m) thick at the top. It is 1,244 feet (379.1712m) across at the top.

The dam weighs more than 6.6 million tons (5,443,113,883.10844kg)

If the Concrete was not otherwise cooled, it would have taken 100 years to set.

The Dam produces over 2.8 million kilowatts of power.

The dam cost (only) $49 million to build

Officially there were 96 deaths during the construction. contrary to popular belief, nobody is buried in the dam.

Lake Mead (The reservoir created by Hoover Dam) stretches for 110 miles (177.0284k) upstream on the Colorado River and 35 miles (56.32704k) up the Virgin River. The width varies from a few hundred feet (15.250cm) to eight miles (12.874k)

There was no alcohol allowed in Boulder City so when they got their pay a lot of  workers would head to Las Vegas where they could drink, gamble and get some "comfort" for the night.

The influx of money from the construction workers began the expansion of Las Vegas after that all it needed was the power provided by the dam to become the entertainment capital of the world.