When completed in , the dam was a major engineering achievement at a height of meters feet and crest-width of meters 1, feet. The reservoir that formed behind the dam is Lake Mead, one of the world's largest artificially created bodies of water. It covers an area of square kilometers square miles , and its shoreline measures kilometers miles. The hydroelectric generators of Hoover Dam—capable of supplying nearly 1. Before the construction could start, the Colorado River had to be diverted through tunnels.
These tunnels would allow the water to bypass the site of the dam foundation, and later would contain the electric plant generators. Building tunnels directly through the canyon rock walls required huge amounts of dynamite in order to remove rock, and enormous support structures to maintain the passageways.
Once the first two tunnels where in place, cofferdams were built to divert the Colorado River. This accomplishment signaled that the actual dam construction could begin.
Because of its importance in the overall integrity of the dam, the foundation was a major factor in building a structure that would be assured not to fail. This necessitated the removal of the mud and muck at the river bottom. Workers with the assistance of power shovels excavated over , cubic meters , cubic yards of these deposits in order to Increasing demands for water in the twentieth century led to some of the largest construction projects ever undertaken.
The massive undertaking that created Hoover Dam captivated the public. Here a tour guide explains the dam's features to sightseeing visitors in Hoover Dam remains a popular tourist attraction. By , Las Vegas had only about 5, residents.
Nearly all of its small hotels, stores, and other businesses were concentrated on one main thoroughfare, Fremont Street.
The town was infamous for its lax enforcement of liquor laws during Prohibition and its backroom brothels on Block Las Vegas government and business leaders had long heard of plans for a dam project about thirty miles southeast of Las Vegas.
The city expected the dam to attract manufacturing and other industries seeking cheap and abundant vacant land. But they were disappointed. Major businesses, seeing the lack of housing, water, power, higher education, and other infrastructure in Las Vegas, instead settled in other western states. He announced that the construction workforce of 5, would live in a new town his department would build, closer to the construction site. But even as the government started building Boulder City in , development in Las Vegas took off, thanks to new infrastructure and supplies of water and power.
Plans were submitted that year for forty buildings in Las Vegas, including offices, warehouses, and many small homes. The city's population increased to 7, in only one year by To combat further attempts on the dam, U. Work started in April That summer, Southern Nevada sweltered through record-breaking temperatures for months. By June, just two short months into construction, the average daily temperature was reaching a high of degrees Fahrenheit.
The workers in the deepest parts of the tunnels worked in temperatures between to degrees Fahrenheit during the summer months! Understandably, many of the workers suffered heatstroke on multiple occasions. Las Vegas, also known today as Sin City, wanted to be the place where the Hoover Dam project established its headquarters.
In , Las Vegas was not the glittering metropolis we know today, but it still had a reputation for being a wild west party town that could pose a debaucherous distraction for those employed to build the dam. When the U. He shut down several brothels and speakeasies in an effort to lend the city an air of class.
Today, the dam is a thriving tourist destination on top of being a functioning power plant. It offers stunning views and fascinating insight, and each year nearly 7 million people visit the dam to snap selfies and experience its grandeur. Altogether, some 21, workers contributed to its construction. Hoover Dam fulfilled the goal of disseminating the one-wild Colorado River through the parched Southwest landscape, fueling the development of such major cities as Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix.
Capable of irrigating 2 million acres, its 17 turbines generate enough electricity to power 1. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Surveyors originally recommended the dam be constructed at Boulder Canyon, leading the initiative to be called the Boulder Canyon Dam Project.
Even when Black Canyon later was deemed a better location for the new structure, it From the time it was founded as a small settlement in the late 18th century, Los Angeles depended on its own river for water, building a system of reservoirs and open ditches as well as canals to irrigate nearby fields.
As the city grew, however, it became clear that this supply During the Great Depression, which began in and lasted approximately a decade, shantytowns appeared across the U. As the Depression worsened in the s, causing severe hardships for millions of Americans, many looked Lou Hoover was an American first lady and the wife of Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States. As a child, Lou developed an interest in nature and the outdoors, a passion she would follow to Stanford University, where she became one of the
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