Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur announced the dam would be named for his boss, President Herbert Hoover, who had been inaugurated in In , Hoover was succeeded in the White House by Franklin Roosevelt, and the new secretary of the interior, Harold Ickes, no fan of Hoover, declared the structure would once again be called Boulder Dam.
By that point, the name Herbert Hoover also had taken on negative associations for a number of Americans, who blamed him for the Great Depression. An entire city was created for people working on the dam.
In the early s, Boulder City, Nevada, was constructed to house 5, dam project workers. Boulder City was situated on federally owned land and had no elected officials.
The city was run by an employee of the U. Bureau of Reclamation the agency responsible for the dam project , who had the authority to evict residents as he saw fit. Among the local rules, alcohol and gambling were banned. After nearly 30 years, the federal government relinquished control of Boulder City, which was incorporated in Bureau of Reclamation when the dam was being planned and built flooded the community of St. Thomas, Nevada, and turned it into a ghost town.
The last resident of the town, which was settled by Mormon pioneers in , rowed away from his home in Today, the reservoir supplies water to farms, businesses and millions of people in Nevada, Arizona, California and Mexico. It has to be 10 times more durable than it is today. Narayan said he felt the Hoover Dam project should be given serious consideration because pumped-storage projects had been tested and proven for decades. Engineers have conducted initial feasibility studies, including a review of locations for the pump station that would have as little adverse impact on the environment and nearby communities as possible.
But because Hoover Dam sits on federal land and operates under the Bureau of Reclamation, part of the Interior Department, the bureau must back the project before it can proceed.
If the bureau agrees to consider the project, the National Park Service will review the environmental, scientific and aesthetic impact on the downstream recreation area. If the Los Angeles utility receives approval, Park Service officials have told it, the agency wants the pumping operation largely invisible to the public, which could require another engineering feat.
Among the considerations is the effect on bighorn sheep that roam Black Canyon, just below the dam, and on drinking water for places like Bullhead City. Some environmentalists worry that adding a pump facility would impair water flow farther downstream, in particular at the Colorado River Delta, a mostly dry riverbed in Mexico that no longer connects to the sea. Another concern is that the pump station would draw water from or close to Lake Mohave, where water enthusiasts boat, fish, ride Jet-Skis, kayak and canoe.
Keri Simons, a manager of Watercraft Adventures, a year-old rental business in Laughlin, said water levels already fluctuated in stretches of the Colorado close to the river towns. The smaller Davis Dam, just north of Laughlin, shuts off the flow overnight. One morning this year, the water level just outside town dropped so low that you could walk across the riverbed, Ms. Simons said.
Even if no water is lost because of the pumping project, the thought of any additional stress on the system worries Toby Cotter, the city manager of Bullhead City. The town thrives on the summer tourism that draws some two million visitors to the area for recreation on the greenish-blue waters, Mr. Cotter said.
Environmentalists have been pushing Los Angeles to stop using fossil fuels and produce electricity from alternative sources like solar and wind power. And Mayor Garcetti said he would like his city to be the first in the nation to operate solely on clean energy, while maintaining a reliable electric system.
But old wounds are still raw with some along the Colorado. A coal-fired power plant in Laughlin that the Department of Water and Power and other utilities operated was shut down in , costing jobs and causing the local economies to buckle. And a decision long ago to allot Nevada a small fraction of the water that California and Arizona can draw remains a sore point. There will be a myriad of concerns. Named the Boulder Canyon project, after the original proposed site, the dam would not only control flooding and irrigation, it would generate and sell hydroelectric power to recoup its costs.
Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover brokered the Colorado River Compact to divide the water proportionally among the seven states, but the legal wrangling continued until outgoing President Calvin Coolidge authorized the Boulder Canyon Project in December As the Great Depression unfolded, hopeful laborers descended on Las Vegas and set up camp in the surrounding desert for the chance to work on the project. Those who were hired eventually moved to Boulder City, a community specifically built six miles from the work site to house its employees.
Meanwhile, the U. The first difficult step of construction involved blasting the canyon walls to create four diversion tunnels for the water. Facing strict time deadlines, workers toiled in degree tunnels choked with carbon monoxide and dust, conditions that prompted a six-day strike in August The second step of involved the clearing of the walls that would contain the dam.
Suspended from heights of up to feet above the canyon floor, high scalers wielded pound jackhammers and metal poles to knock loose material, a treacherous task that resulted in casualties from falling workers, equipment and rocks. Meanwhile, the dried riverbed allowed for construction to begin on the powerplant, four intake towers and the dam itself.
Cement was mixed onsite and hoisted across the canyon on one of five ton cableways, a fresh bucket capable of reaching the crews below every 78 seconds. Offsetting the heat generated by cooling concrete, nearly miles of pipe loops were embedded to circulate water through the poured blocks, with workers continually spraying the concrete to keep it moist.
As the dam rose, block by block, from the canyon floor, the visual renderings of architect Gordon Kaufmann took form. Electing to emphasize the imposing mass of the structure, Kaufmann kept the smooth, curved face free of adornment. The powerplant was given a futuristic touch with horizontal aluminum fins for windows, while its interior was designed to pay homage to Native American cultures.
With the body of water that would become Lake Mead already beginning to swell behind the dam, the final block of concrete was poured and topped off at feet above the canyon floor in Approximately 5 million barrels of cement and 45 million pounds of reinforcement steel had gone into what was then the tallest dam in the world, its 6.
Altogether, some 21, workers contributed to its construction.
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