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Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over one hundred lives. The dam was controversially named after President Herbert Hoover.
Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume. The dam is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 30 mi (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The dam's generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California. Hoover Dam is a major tourist attraction; nearly a million people tour the dam each year. Heavily travelled U.S. 93 ran along the dam's crest until October 2010, when the Hoover Dam Bypass opened.
Penstock Intake Towers
Tour stop audio transcript
Four reinforced-concrete structures located above the dam, two on each side of the canyon. The diameter of these towers are 82 feet at the base, 63 feet 3 inches at the top, and 29 feet 8 inches inside.
Each tower is 395 feet high and each controls one-fourth the supply of water carried to the powerplant turbines. The four towers contain 93,674 cubic yards of concrete and 15,299,604 pounds of steel.
Memorial Bridge
Tour stop audio transcript
The Mike O'Callaghan - Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge spans the Colorado River between the states of Arizona and Nevada. Opened in 2010, it was the key component of the Hoover Dam Bypass project, which rerouted US 93 from its previous routing along the top of Hoover Dam and removed several hairpin turns and blind curves from the route.
It is jointly named for Mike O'Callaghan, Governor of Nevada from 1971–1979, and Pat Tillman, an American football player who left his career with the Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the United States Army and was later killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire.
Oskar Hansen's Celestial Star Chart
Tour stop audio transcript
Much of the sculpture is the work of Norwegian-born, naturalized American Oskar J.W. Hansen.
Hansen's principal work at Hoover Dam is the monument of dedication on the Nevada side of the dam. Here, rising from a black, polished base, is a 142-foot flagpole flanked by two winged figures, which Hansen calls the Winged Figures of the Republic. They express "the immutable calm of intellectual resolution, and the enormous power of trained physical strength, equally enthroned in placid triumph of scientific accomplishment."
Hoover Dam, said Hansen, represented for him the building genius of America, "a monument to collective genius exerting itself in community efforts around a common need or ideal." He compared the dam to such works as the great pyramids of Egypt...
The chart preserves for future generations the date on which President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated Hoover Dam, September 30, 1935.
High Scaler Outlook & Cafe
Tour stop audio transcript
Millions of years of weather eroded the canyon walls. Water froze in cracks and crevices, splitting the rock. Before construction could begin on the dam, this loose rock had to be removed. Special men were required for the job, men called "high-scalers."
In 1995, local sculptor Steven Liguori and Hoover Dam Spillway House concessionaire Bert Hansen decided to create a bronze high scaler statue in the likeness of Joe Kine, one of the last surviving high scalers who worked on the Hoover Dam project. A clear picture of Joe Kine existed showing him in his working environment and was used as a guide to create the bronze figure. Upon completion the statue was presented to Joe on September 30, 1995, Hoover Dam's sixtieth anniversary.
The statue can be found near the dam's new concession facility on the Nevada side, "The High Scaler Cafe".
