Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. 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. Originally known as Boulder Dam from 1933, it was officially renamed Hoover Dam for President Herbert Hoover by a joint resolution of Congress in 1947. Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power.
Introduction
Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam | Introduction
Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. In the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona In the Black Canyon of the Colorado River It is located in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona.
who was president when the hoover dam was built
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Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. 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. Originally known as Boulder Dam from 1933, it was officially renamed Hoover Dam for President Herbert Hoover by a joint resolution of Congress in 1947. Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power.
Hoover Dam | Introduction
The Hoover Dam is a massive concrete arch-gravity dam, constructed in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the US states of Arizona and Nevada between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression. In 1928, Congress authorized the project to build a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power. The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium called Six Companies, Inc. Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and some of the techniques were unproven. The torrid summer weather and the lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties.
Dam | Large dams
The dam is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 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. The heavily traveled U.S. Route 93 (US 93) ran along the dam's crest until October 2010, when the Hoover Dam Bypass opened.
Hoover Dam | Introduction
In 1928, Congress authorized the project. The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium called Six Companies, Inc., which began construction of the dam in early 1931. Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and some of the techniques were unproven. The torrid summer weather and lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties. Nevertheless, Six Companies turned the dam over to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule. Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume (when it is full).
Hoover Dam | Introduction
In August 1927, the US Congress authorized the building of a dam in the canyon of the Owyhee River. Construction of the dam began in 1928 to provide water for irrigation projects. It was built on a foundation of massive rhyolite, massive pitchstone, and associated unmassive pitchstone agglomerate geologic formations adjacent to the Owyhee Mountains. A project of the Bureau of Reclamation, they hired General Construction Company from Seattle to build the dam. Former Oregonian and then United States President Herbert Hoover dedicated what was the highest dam of its type in the world on July 17, 1932. Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur delivered Hoover's message at the dam.
Owyhee Dam | History
President Wilson chose Muscle Shoals, Alabama as the site of the dam. Wilson Dam was later named for him, and the dam and nitrate plants built in Muscle Shoals were absorbed into the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933.
National Defense Act of 1916 | Additional results
Hoover Dam is a dam on the Colorado River bordering Nevada and Arizona, US. Hoover Dam or Hooverdam may also refer to:
Hoover Dam (disambiguation) | Introduction
Theodore Roosevelt Dam is a dam on the Salt River located northeast of Phoenix, Arizona. The dam is high and forms Theodore Roosevelt Lake as it impounds the Salt River. Originally built between 1905 and 1911; the dam was renovated and expanded in 1989–1996. The dam is named after President Theodore Roosevelt. Serving mainly for irrigation, water supply, and flood control, the dam also has a hydroelectric generating capacity of 36 megawatts.
Theodore Roosevelt Dam | Introduction
President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Wirtz Dam | Introduction
To mark the occasion, a three-cent stamp was issued by the United States Post Office Department—bearing the name "Boulder Dam", the official name of the dam between 1933 and 1947. After the ceremony, Roosevelt made the first visit by any American president to Las Vegas. Most work had been completed by the dedication, and Six Companies negotiated with the government through late 1935 and early 1936 to settle all claims and arrange for the formal transfer of the dam to the Federal Government. The parties came to an agreement and on March 1, 1936, Secretary Ickes formally accepted the dam on behalf of the government.
Hoover Dam | Dedication and completion
In 1888, Billy Breakenridge became surveyor for Maricopa County. He surveyed the Salt River for potential dam sites and in July 1889, he traveled with James McClintock, William J. Murphy, and John R. Norton to choose the best location. After a week on horseback, they reached Box Canyon, near the confluence of Tonto Creek and the Salt River. They recommended the location as the best site for a dam. One of the original five federal projects authorized on March 14, 1903, under the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902, Roosevelt Dam was the first major project to be completed under the new federal reclamation program.
Theodore Roosevelt Dam | History
The first concrete was poured into the dam on June 6, 1933, 18 months ahead of schedule. Since concrete heats and contracts as it cures, the potential for uneven cooling and contraction of the concrete posed a serious problem. Bureau of Reclamation engineers calculated that if the dam were to be built in a single continuous pour, the concrete would take 125 years to cool, and the resulting stresses would cause the dam to crack and crumble. Instead, the ground where the dam would rise was marked with rectangles, and concrete blocks in columns were poured, some as large as and high.
Hoover Dam | Concrete
During 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt requested Congress to allocate funding for a dam on the French Broad River in East Tennessee. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor resulted in the United States entering World War II, construction of this dam became a high priority in order to generate hydroelectric power for national defense purposes. Large amounts of electricity were needed to produce aluminum and magnesium – vital metals for wartime warplane-manufacturing. When the TVA first asked Congress for the funds to construct Douglas Dam in late 1941, U.S. Senator Kenneth McKellar (D-Tennessee) opposed the project because it would flood some of fertile farmland important to the local food canning industry.
Douglas Dam | Background and construction
Excavation for the powerhouse was carried out simultaneously with the excavation for the dam foundation and abutments. The excavation of this U-shaped structure located at the downstream toe of the dam was completed in late 1933 with the first concrete placed in November 1933. Filling of Lake Mead began February 1, 1935, even before the last of the concrete was poured that May. The powerhouse was one of the projects uncompleted at the time of the formal dedication on September 30, 1935; a crew of 500 men remained to finish it and other structures. To make the powerhouse roof bombproof, it was constructed of layers of concrete, rock, and steel with a total thickness of about , topped with layers of sand and tar.
Hoover Dam | Power plant and water demands
On September 30, 1930, President Herbert Hoover remotely initiated the generation of electricity from Comerford Dam, then New England's largest single hydroelectric development. This was the first in a series, harnessing hydroelectric power in the United States in the 1930s. The power was sent for use in Massachusetts. At the time of its construction, it was the largest "retaining wall" in the United States, representing more than of concrete. In 2005, USGen New England sold the dam to TransCanada Hydro Northeast Inc.
Frank D. Comerford Dam | History
After the war, it reopened September 2, 1945, and by 1953, annual attendance had risen to 448,081. The dam closed on November 25, 1963, and March 31, 1969, days of mourning in remembrance of Presidents Kennedy and Eisenhower. In 1995, a new visitors' center was built, and the following year, visits exceeded one million for the first time. The dam closed again to the public on September 11, 2001; modified tours were resumed in December and a new "Discovery Tour" was added the following year. Today, nearly a million people per year take the tours of the dam offered by the Bureau of Reclamation..
Hoover Dam | Roadway and tourism
Wilbur justified his choice on the ground that Hoover was "the great engineer whose vision and persistence ... has done so much to make [the dam] possible". One writer complained in response that "the Great Engineer had quickly drained, ditched, and dammed the country." After Hoover's election defeat in 1932 and the accession of the Roosevelt administration, Secretary Ickes ordered on May 13, 1933, that the dam be referred to as "Boulder Dam". Ickes stated that Wilbur had been imprudent in naming the dam after a sitting president, that Congress had never ratified his choice, and that it had long been referred to as Boulder Dam.
Hoover Dam | Naming controversy
He was appointed by President Calvin Coolidge in 1928 to the Colorado River Board commission to study the Hoover Dam project.
Daniel W. Mead | Introduction
The Six Companies board selected Frank Crowe, an employee of Morrison-Knudsen as the General Construction Superintendent of the Boulder Dam construction. Crowe also drafted the bid, hired each of the men who were employed during the course of the project, lived in Boulder City with his wife and two daughters and was on the dam site every day of the week until the project was completed. He was rewarded a bonus percentage of the profit for completing virtually every portion of the job well ahead of schedule. Six Companies, Inc. started working in late spring, around June of 1931. Six Companies Inc.
Six Companies, Inc. | Hoover Dam
With most work finished on the dam itself (the powerhouse remained uncompleted), a formal dedication ceremony was arranged for September 30, 1935, to coincide with a western tour being made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The morning of the dedication, it was moved forward three hours from 2 p.m. Pacific time to 11 a.m.; this was done because Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes had reserved a radio slot for the President for 2 p.m. but officials did not realize until the day of the ceremony that the slot was for 2 p.m. Eastern Time. Despite the change in the ceremony time, and temperatures of , 10,000 people were present for the President's speech, in which he avoided mentioning the name of former President Hoover, who was not invited to the ceremony.
Hoover Dam | Dedication and completion
Even before Congress approved the Boulder Canyon Project, the Bureau of Reclamation was considering what kind of dam should be used. Officials eventually decided on a massive concrete arch-gravity dam, the design of which was overseen by the Bureau's chief design engineer John L. Savage. The monolithic dam would be thick at the bottom and thin near the top, and would present a convex face towards the water above the dam. The curving arch of the dam would transmit the water's force into the abutments, in this case the rock walls of the canyon. The wedge-shaped dam would be thick at the bottom, narrowing to at the top, leaving room for a highway connecting Nevada and Arizona.
Hoover Dam | Design, preparation and contracting
In November 1928, Herbert Hoover was overwhelmingly elected as 31st President of the United States. While all preceding Presidents came from the Eastern half of the United States, Hoover's origins were further from Washington, D.C.—he had been born in Iowa and spent much of his life in California. Returning home to routinely escape the pressure and spotlight of the presidency would not be possible, so he desired a closer casual retreat. Hoover and his wife had lived together at mining camps while he served as a mine engineer for over 10 years and appreciated the isolation of remote accommodations. He instructed his secretary Lawrence Richey to find a secluded retreat site within 100 miles (160 km) of Washington, D.C., at least 2,500 feet (760 m) above sea level to avoid mosquitoes and—most importantly—close to an excellent trout stream for fishing.
Rapidan Camp | 1929: Founding
Each five-foot form contained a set of steel pipes; cool river water would be poured through the pipes, followed by ice-cold water from a refrigeration plant. When an individual block had cured and had stopped contracting, the pipes were filled with grout. Grout was also used to fill the hairline spaces between columns, which were grooved to increase the strength of the joints. The concrete was delivered in huge steel buckets and almost 7 feet in diameter; Crowe was awarded two patents for their design. These buckets, which weighed when full, were filled at two massive concrete plants on the Nevada side, and were delivered to the site in special railcars.
Hoover Dam | Concrete
Concrete placement continued until November 15, 1962, when workers topped out the dam. By the end of 1962, both the river outlet works and the spillway tunnel were completed, and the diversion tunnel was closed, allowing water to begin rising behind the dam. The dam's hydroelectric generators were installed by mid–August 1963 and the first unit went into operation on September 27 at the press of a switch by President John F. Kennedy. The dam was officially dedicated by Lady Bird Johnson on August 17 of the following year.
Flaming Gorge Dam | Construction
During the years of lobbying leading up to the passage of legislation authorizing the dam in 1928, the press generally referred to the dam as "Boulder Dam" or as "Boulder Canyon Dam", even though the proposed site had shifted to Black Canyon. The Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928 (BCPA) never mentioned a proposed name or title for the dam. The BCPA merely allows the government to "construct, operate, and maintain a dam and incidental works in the main stream of the Colorado River at Black Canyon or Boulder Canyon". When Secretary of the Interior Ray Wilbur spoke at the ceremony starting the building of the railway between Las Vegas and the dam site on September 17, 1930, he named the dam "Hoover Dam", citing a tradition of naming dams after Presidents, though none had been so honored during their terms of office.
Hoover Dam | Naming controversy
On January 10, 1931, the Bureau made the bid documents available to interested parties, at five dollars a copy. The government was to provide the materials; but the contractor was to prepare the site and build the dam. The dam was described in minute detail, covering 100 pages of text and 76 drawings. A $2 million bid bond was to accompany each bid; the winner would have to post a $5 million performance bond. The contractor had seven years to build the dam, or penalties would ensue. The Wattis Brothers, heads of the Utah Construction Company, were interested in bidding on the project, but lacked the money for the performance bond.
Hoover Dam | Design, preparation and contracting
The Hoover Dam has made frequent appearances in various forms of media on account of its size and national prominence within the United States. Prior to the dam's completion in 1936, the Boulder Dam construction project was likewise the subject of a number of films.
Hoover Dam in popular culture | Introduction
With this technique, Crowe built some of the largest dams in the American west, including the Hoover Dam, Parker Dam downstream from Hoover; Copper Basin and Gene Wash Dams on the Colorado Aqueduct system; and Shasta Dam in Northern California. All these dams were important but none approached the mythic scale or mystique of Hoover Dam.
Frank Crowe | Introduction
On January 10, 1931, the Bureau of Reclamation made the bid documents available to interested parties, at $5 a copy (equivalent to $ in ). The government would provide the materials, and the contractor was to prepare the site and build the dam. The dam was described in minute detail, covering 100 pages of text and 76 drawings. A $2 million (equivalent to $ in ) bid bond was to accompany each bid. The winner would have to post a $5 million (equivalent to $ in ) performance bond. The contractor would have seven years to build the dam, or penalties would ensue.
Six Companies, Inc. | Hoover Dam
Treshow was hired as a designer of construction tools, to work on the Hoover Dam. During the construction of the Boulder (now Hoover) Dam between 1930 and 1936 he designed and supervised the installation of the equipment that pumped concrete - more than 8 million tons of it - from where it was mixed to the dam site. "Something over a mile as I recall," says his son, Ken. Treshow switched to nuclear reactor design and engineering after World War II.
Mike Treshow | Hoover Dam
Since the dam no longer had the integrity of the design, materials, workmanship, feeling, or association that it had when it was originally listed, the National Historic Landmark designation was withdrawn on March 10, 1999. The Theodore Roosevelt Dam National Register District contains other resources that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but the dam itself is no longer a contributing property to the district.
Theodore Roosevelt Dam | Later expansion
The final episode focuses on the construction of the Hoover Dam during the Great Depression of the 1930s, focusing in particular on the ruthless pace set by Frank Crowe, the builder, whose eagerness to complete the project well before schedule and subsequent exploitation of the workforce (who were desperate for any employment and were forced to accept conditions of extreme hardship in the process) resulted in many deaths and the eventual construction of a new city to house the workers.
Seven Wonders of the Industrial World | The Hoover Dam
Electricity from the dam's powerhouse was originally sold pursuant to a fifty-year contract, authorized by Congress in 1934, which ran from 1937 to 1987. In 1984, Congress passed a new statute which set power allocations to southern California, Arizona, and Nevada from the dam from 1987 to 2017. The powerhouse was run under the original authorization by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison; in 1987, the Bureau of Reclamation assumed control. In 2011, Congress enacted legislation extending the current contracts until 2067, after setting aside 5% of Hoover Dam's power for sale to Native American tribes, electric cooperatives, and other entities.
Hoover Dam | Power distribution
Hoover Dam was recognized as a National Civil Engineering Landmark in 1984. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985, cited for its engineering innovations.
Hoover Dam | Recognition
The Lake Tap contract would provide locations where the penstocks would be located to bring water into the hydroelectric power plant. Shortly after completion, however, the area entered into a prolonged period of drought, and it would be some time before the newly increased capacity was put to use, with the lake finally reaching historic levels of 100% capacity in February 2009. As a result of the reconstruction, the dam has a completely altered appearance from when it was originally listed as a National Historic Landmark. The original rubble-masonry dam was completely encased in concrete, and the structural height was extended from to .
Theodore Roosevelt Dam | Later expansion
Although this may have been sufficient time to answer what they had been directed to determine, they had been deprived of the sworn testimony at the Coroner's Inquest which was scheduled to be convened March 21, the only inquiry that took into consideration factors other than geology and engineering. The need for nearly immediate answers was understandable, having its roots in the Swing–Johnson Bill in Congress. This bill, which had first been filed in 1922, and failed to be voted on in three successive Congresses, was again before Congress at the time. This bill ultimately provided the funding for constructing the Hoover Dam.
St. Francis Dam | Investigation
In the following years, the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), known as the Reclamation Service at the time, also considered the Lower Colorado as the site for a dam. Service chief Arthur Powell Davis proposed using dynamite to collapse the walls of Boulder Canyon, north of the eventual dam site, into the river. The river would carry off the smaller pieces of debris, and a dam would be built incorporating the remaining rubble. In 1922, after considering it for several years, the Reclamation Service finally rejected the proposal, citing doubts about the unproven technique and questions as to whether it would, in fact, save money.
Hoover Dam | Search for resources
The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum is located in West Branch, Iowa next to the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site. The library is one of thirteen presidential libraries run by the National Archives and Records Administration. The Hoover–Minthorn House, where Hoover lived from 1885 to 1891, is located in Newberg, Oregon. His Rapidan fishing camp in Virginia, which he donated to the government in 1933, is now a National Historic Landmark within the Shenandoah National Park. The Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover House, built in 1919 in Stanford, California, is now the official residence of the president of Stanford University, and a National Historic Landmark.
Herbert Hoover | Memorials
Hoover Dam, in Blendon Township, near Westerville, Ohio, dams the Big Walnut Creek to form the Hoover Memorial Reservoir. This reservoir is a major water source for the city of Columbus, Ohio. It holds of water and has a surface area of , or about five square miles. Construction began during 1953 due to the increased water demand of post-war Columbus. The project was completed and dedicated in 1955 and the dam officially opened in 1958. It was named for two brothers, Charles P. Hoover and Clarence B. Hoover, to honor their careers with the City of Columbus Waterworks.
Hoover Dam (Ohio) | Introduction
was composed of:
Six Companies, Inc. | Hoover Dam
For the dam to rest on solid rock, it was necessary to remove accumulated erosion soils and other loose materials in the riverbed until sound bedrock was reached. Work on the foundation excavations was completed in June 1933. During this excavation, approximately of material was removed. Since the dam was an arch-gravity type, the side-walls of the canyon would bear the force of the impounded lake. Therefore, the side-walls were excavated too, to reach virgin rock, as weathered rock might provide pathways for water seepage. Shovels for the excavation came from the Marion Power Shovel Company. The men who removed this rock were called "high scalers".
Hoover Dam | Groundworks, rock clearance and grout curtain
Increased security concerns by the government have led to most of the interior structure being inaccessible to tourists. As a result, few of True's decorations can now be seen by visitors. Visitors can only purchase tickets on-site and have the options of a guided tour of the whole facility or only the power plant area. The only self-guided tour option is for the visitor center itself, where visitors can view various exhibits and enjoy a 360-degree view of the dam.
Hoover Dam | Roadway and tourism
To protect the construction site from the Colorado River and to facilitate the river's diversion, two cofferdams were constructed. Work on the upper cofferdam began in September 1932, even though the river had not yet been diverted. The cofferdams were designed to protect against the possibility of the river's flooding a site at which two thousand men might be at work, and their specifications were covered in the bid documents in nearly as much detail as the dam itself. The upper cofferdam was high, and thick at its base, thicker than the dam itself. It contained of material. When the cofferdams were in place and the construction site was drained of water, excavation for the dam foundation began.
Hoover Dam | Groundworks, rock clearance and grout curtain
On October 15, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower pressed a button on his desk in Washington, D.C., sending a telegraph signal that set off the first blast of dynamite at the portal of the right diversion tunnel. Drilling the tunnels through the porous Navajo sandstone abutting the dam site posed major problems for the excavation crews of the Mountain States Construction Company, which won the contract for the diversion tunnels in 1956. Transporting workers and equipment to the bottom of the canyon was extremely difficult. Initially, transport was done by barge from Wahweap Creek, but the fast current of the Colorado River could be dangerous.
Glen Canyon Dam | River diversion
Unknown to the general public, Attorney General Homer Cummings informed Ickes that Congress had indeed used the name "Hoover Dam" in five different bills appropriating money for construction of the dam. The official status this conferred to the name "Hoover Dam" had been noted on the floor of the House of Representatives by Congressman Edward T. Taylor of Colorado on December 12, 1930, but was likewise ignored by Ickes.
Hoover Dam | Naming controversy
The jet-flow gates, located in concrete structures above the river and also at the outlets of the inner diversion tunnels at river level, may be used to divert water around the dam in emergency or flood conditions, but have never done so, and in practice are used only to drain water from the penstocks for maintenance. Following an uprating project from 1986 to 1993, the total gross power rating for the plant, including two 2.4 megawatt Pelton turbine-generators that power Hoover Dam's own operations is a maximum capacity of 2080 megawatts. The annual generation of Hoover Dam varies. The maximum net generation was 10.348 TWh in 1984, and the minimum since 1940 was 2.648 TWh in 1956.
Hoover Dam | Power plant and water demands
That dams were planned for a valley in Yosemite National Park caused significant opposition. One of the most potent opponents was the Sierra Club and its founding President, John Muir. After two vetoes by Teddy Roosevelt, on December 19, 1913, Woodrow Wilson signed the Raker Act permitting construction. It began in 1914.
Lake Eleanor | Dam construction
The dam was built by the Works Progress Administration of the New Deal. It is located on the site of an old log dam.
Chute Pond Dam | History
The Boulder Dam is the former name for the Hoover Dam. Boulder Dam may also refer to:
Boulder Dam (disambiguation) | Introduction
The new arrangement began on October 1, 2017. The Bureau of Reclamation reports that the energy generated under the contracts ending in 2017 was allocated as follows:
Hoover Dam | Power distribution
There were three valid bids, and Six Companies' bid of $48,890,955 was the lowest, within $24,000 of the confidential government estimate of what the dam would cost to build, and five million dollars less than the next-lowest bid.
Hoover Dam | Design, preparation and contracting
The statue originally decorated Hoover's home in Palo Alto, California. The Hoovers brought it to West Branch in 1939 so that it could "[contemplate] the house" where Hoover was born.
Herbert Hoover National Historic Site | National Historic Site
The initial plans for the facade of the dam, the power plant, the outlet tunnels and ornaments clashed with the modern look of an arch dam. The Bureau of Reclamation, more concerned with the dam's functionality, adorned it with a Gothic-inspired balustrade and eagle statues. This initial design was criticized by many as being too plain and unremarkable for a project of such immense scale, so Los Angeles-based architect Gordon B. Kaufmann, then the supervising architect to the Bureau of Reclamation, was brought in to redesign the exteriors. Kaufmann greatly streamlined the design and applied an elegant Art Deco style to the entire project.
Hoover Dam | Architectural style
A total of of concrete was used in the dam before concrete pouring ceased on May 29, 1935. In addition, were used in the power plant and other works. More than of cooling pipes were placed within the concrete. Overall, there is enough concrete in the dam to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York. Concrete cores were removed from the dam for testing in 1995; they showed that "Hoover Dam's concrete has continued to slowly gain strength" and the dam is composed of a "durable concrete having a compressive strength exceeding the range typically found in normal mass concrete".
Hoover Dam | Concrete
Soon after the dam was authorized, increasing numbers of unemployed people converged on southern Nevada. Las Vegas, then a small city of some 5,000, saw between 10,000 and 20,000 unemployed descend on it. A government camp was established for surveyors and other personnel near the dam site; this soon became surrounded by a squatters' camp. Known as McKeeversville, the camp was home to men hoping for work on the project, together with their families. Another camp, on the flats along the Colorado River, was officially called Williamsville, but was known to its inhabitants as "Ragtown". When construction began, Six Companies hired large numbers of workers, with more than 3,000 on the payroll by 1932 and with employment peaking at 5,251 in July 1934.
Hoover Dam | Labor force
Construction on Glen Canyon Dam began with a demolition blast keyed by the push of a button by President Dwight D. Eisenhower at his desk in the Oval Office on October 1, 1956. The first blast started clearing tunnels for water diversion. On February 11, 1959, water was diverted through the tunnels so dam construction could begin. Later that year, the bridge was completed, allowing trucks to deliver equipment and materials for the dam, and also for the new town of Page, Arizona.
Lake Powell | History
These six companies (Utah Construction, Morrison-Knudsen, Kaiser, Bechtel, Pacific Bridge and MacDonald&Kahn) with the help of Frank T. Crowe worked out the bid. In February of 1931 the Six Companies was incorporated. Six Companies, Inc.: President W.H. Wattis, First Vice President W.A. Bechtel, 2nd Vice President E.O. Wattis, Secretary Charles A Shea, Treasurer Felix Kahn and Assistant Secretary-Treasurer K.K. Bechtel. Board members included: W.H. Wattis, E.O. Wattis, Charles A. Shea, Felix Kahn, Stephen D. Bechtel, Henry J. Kaiser, Alan MacDonald and Philip Hart. On March 4, 1931 the US Secretary of the Interior awards Six Companies, Incorporated's bid for project Boulder Dam.
Six Companies, Inc. | Hoover Dam
The dam project was privately undertaken by Rocky Mountain Power to generate hydroelectric power in the area; it started construction in 1930. But, with revenues declining because of the Great Depression, the company halted construction in 1931. Montana State Treasurer James Brett went to a meeting in Atlanta in 1934 to ask President Franklin D. Roosevelt for $5,000,000 to complete the dam. Knowing that the area was in desperate need of jobs, Roosevelt approved the money for the project; this was in keeping with his support of the Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps, which provided jobs for infrastructure and public buildings across the country.
Kerr Dam | Construction
"Mongolian" (Chinese) labor was prevented by the construction contract, while the number of blacks employed by Six Companies never exceeded thirty, mostly lowest-pay-scale laborers in a segregated crew, who were issued separate water buckets. As part of the contract, Six Companies, Inc. was to build Boulder City to house the workers. The original timetable called for Boulder City to be built before the dam project began, but President Hoover ordered work on the dam to begin in March 1931 rather than in October. The company built bunkhouses, attached to the canyon wall, to house 480 single men at what became known as River Camp.
Hoover Dam | Labor force
On August 4, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the construction site and was impressed by the project and its purpose. He spoke to workers and spectators, closing with this statement: "I leave here today with the feeling that this work is well undertaken; that we are going ahead with a useful project, and we are going to see it through for the benefit of our country." Soon afterward, Reclamation was allowed to proceed with the high dam plan but faced the problems of transitioning the design and negotiating an altered contract with MWAK. In , for an additional , MWAK and Six Companies, Inc.
Grand Coulee Dam | Design change
Headquartered in Boulder City, Nevada.
Hoover Dam Police | Organization
Roosevelt Dam was built on the upper Salt River in the early 1900s. This dam decreased the amount of water entering the Gila River where the two rivers meet. During this same time, the amount of water in the Gila River was decreased. The loss of water in the rivers resulted in the loss of most of the healthy cottonwood and willow trees along this portion of the Gila River. These trees require a lot of water to stay healthy. A long drought during the 1940s and early 1950s, and increases in the amount of water being used, accelerated the loss of riparian habitats.
Powers Butte Wildlife Area | Management history and goals
He designed sculpted turrets rising seamlessly from the dam face and clock faces on the intake towers set for the time in Nevada and Arizona—both states are in different time zones, but since Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, the clocks display the same time for more than half the year. At Kaufmann's request, Denver artist Allen Tupper True was hired to handle the design and decoration of the walls and floors of the new dam. True's design scheme incorporated motifs of the Navajo and Pueblo tribes of the region. Although some were initially opposed to these designs, True was given the go-ahead and was officially appointed consulting artist.
Hoover Dam | Architectural style
Reclamation chose Frank Crowe, the superintendent of Hoover Dam construction, to direct operations at Shasta Dam.
Shasta Dam | State Water Plan and the CVP
Federal Dam may refer to a location in the United States:
Federal Dam | Introduction
The average power generated was 4.2 TWh/year for 1947–2008. In 2015, the dam generated 3.6 TWh.
Hoover Dam | Power plant and water demands
In 1989, an ambitious expansion and renovation project was begun at Roosevelt Dam. The dam was resurfaced with concrete by J.A. Jones Construction Company, and its height was raised 77 feet (23 m) to 357 feet (109 m), which had the effect of increasing the storage capacity of Roosevelt Lake by roughly 20%. This project was completed in 1996 at a cost of $430 million. The $430 million in costs included three other major construction contracts associated with the dam. These included the realignment of Highway 188 over the new Theodore Roosevelt Bridge upstream of the dam, renovations to the hydroelectric power plant, and a tunneling contract known as the "Lake Tap".
Theodore Roosevelt Dam | Later expansion
In 1931 his firm was one of the prime contractors in building the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, and subsequently the Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams on the Columbia River.
Henry J. Kaiser | Early life
agreed to join together as Consolidated Builders Inc. and construct the high dam. Six Companies had just finished the Hoover Dam and was nearing completion of Parker Dam. The new design, chosen and approved by the Reclamation office in Denver, included several improvements, one of which was the irrigation pumping plant. Roosevelt envisioned the dam would fit into his New Deal under the Public Works Administration; it would create jobs, farming opportunities and would pay for itself. In addition, as part of a larger public effort, Roosevelt wanted to keep electricity prices low by limiting private ownership of utility companies, which could charge high prices for energy.
Grand Coulee Dam | Design change
The dam was built 1933-38. Its width at the top is 35 ft ( 10.67 m) and 878 ft (267.61 m) at the bottom. It is 264 ft (80.47 m) above the bedrock and 135 ft (41.15 m) above Beaver Brook. There was 2.5 million cubic yards of fill used in the construction and the dam contains 31 caissons. The elevation is 540 ft (164.59 m) MSL.
Goodnough Dike | Technical information
The building of Flaming Gorge Dam started just a few months after the CRSP was approved in Congress, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower pressed a button on his desk in the White House and set off the first blast in Red Canyon. Site preparations and geologic inspections continued as Dutch John, the company town that provided housing for the workers, was completed just northeast of the dam site by 1958. More than 3000 people would inhabit Dutch John at the peak of construction. The main contract for dam construction was awarded to Arch Dam Constructors, a conglomerate of Peter Kiewit Sons, Morrison-Knudsen Company, Mid-Valley Utility Constructors Inc.
Flaming Gorge Dam | Construction
Once the lake formed behind Grand Coulee Dam, the Bureau of Reclamation referred to it as the Columbia Reservoir. In Stevens County, the Colville Examiner and other local newspapers referred to the lake as Empire Lake. On April 17, 1945, five days after the death of President Roosevelt, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes renamed the reservoir Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake. Secretary Ickes stated this token honor recognized how President Roosevelt championed the dam and advocated the legislation to create it.
Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake | Renaming
Excessive water pressure destroys most of the dams on the Colorado River. The Hoover Dam still survives. Over 300 miles behind it, lies the Glen Canyon Dam. In spring, rising temperatures trigger surging floodwater from melting snow and ice that races towards the dam. It reaches the Glen Canyon Dam, the spillways let some of the water out, but the tunnels built into the dam fill with high pressure bubbles that cause high pressure explosions and eat through the dam. Concrete ramps once prevented this, but now they have rusted into wrecks combined with water seeping through the cracks causing erosion.
Aftermath: Population Zero | (200 years A.H.)
McKellar succeeded in blocking this project for two months, but his opposition was overridden because of national defense needs. The Office of Production Management predicted that wartime industrial production would peak in 1943, and that the generating capacity of existing and planned TVA projects would be short by 230,000 kilowatts of electric power. Congress approved the project in January 1942 and President Roosevelt signed the bill into law on January 30, 1942. Construction began immediately on February 2 as a rush project, and it used blueprints, civil engineers, construction workers, and construction machinery from the nearby Cherokee Dam, which had been completed a few weeks earlier in late 1941.
Douglas Dam | Background and construction
They lacked sufficient resources even in combination with their longtime partners, Morrison-Knudsen, which employed the nation's leading dam builder, Frank Crowe. They formed a joint venture to bid for the project with Pacific Bridge Company of Portland, Oregon; Henry J. Kaiser & W. A. Bechtel Company of San Francisco; MacDonald & Kahn Ltd. of Los Angeles; and the J.F. Shea Company of Portland, Oregon. The joint venture was called Six Companies, Inc. as Bechtel and Kaiser were considered one company for purposes of Six in the name. The name was descriptive and was an inside joke among the San Franciscans in the bid, where "Six Companies" was also a Chinese benevolent association in the city.
Hoover Dam | Design, preparation and contracting
The four-lane Hoover Dam Bypass opened on October 19, 2010. It includes a composite steel and concrete arch bridge, the Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, downstream from the dam. With the opening of the bypass, through traffic is no longer allowed across Hoover Dam; dam visitors are allowed to use the existing roadway to approach from the Nevada side and cross to parking lots and other facilities on the Arizona side. Hoover Dam opened for tours in 1937 after its completion, but following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, it was closed to the public when the United States entered World War II, during which only authorized traffic, in convoys, was permitted.
Hoover Dam | Roadway and tourism
The Franklin Falls Dam is located on the Pemigewasset River in the city of Franklin, New Hampshire, in the United States. The dam was constructed between 1939 and 1943 by the Army Corps of Engineers and extends for across the river. During its construction, the neighboring residents of the town of Hill were forced to relocate to higher ground due to rising water levels created by the dam. The reservoir formed by the dam has a permanent pool covering , and the total flood storage capacity is . The total area of the project, including surrounding managed lands, is .
Franklin Falls Dam | Introduction
In the 1930s, a larger system of levees was built around the lake. Following heavy precipitation and flooding from two hurricanes in 1947, the dike was again expanded in the 1960s to create the current Herbert Hoover Dike.
Herbert Hoover Dike | History
Owyhee's construction served as a prototype for the larger Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, including the use of refrigeration to cool the concrete. The dam cost $6,000,000, with the total reclamation project costing $18,000,000. Owyhee was designed by Frank A. Banks, who also designed other dams such as the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River. In the 1980s, electricity-generating capabilities were added to the dam. From 1990 to 1993, the dam was remodeled. Since the height of the dam made a fish ladder impractical, the dam closed off the Owyhee Chinook salmon runs that used to swim as far upstream as Nevada.
Owyhee Dam | History
The Board cautioned: "To avoid such possibilities, the proposed dam should be constructed on conservative if not ultra-conservative lines."
Hoover Dam | Planning and agreements
G.R. Schneider. The construction contracts for the dam were awarded to the Morrison-Knudsen company and the Utah Construction Company. Both companies had participated in the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam and Hoover Dam. Construction began in the spring of 1941 with the removal of of earth to expose the bedrock foundation and an additional had to be removed to stabilize it. This was accomplished using draglines and power shovels. Most of the smaller aggregate used in construction was removed from the sand and gravel bars of a twenty-mile (32 km) section of the White River. A quarry and crushing plant was required to create nearly 800,000 tons of larger aggregate.
Norfork Dam | Construction
The building is owned by the General Services Administration. Completed in 1932, it was renamed after Herbert Hoover in 1981. Hoover served as Secretary of Commerce (1921–1928) and later President (1929–1933). The closest Washington Metro station is Federal Triangle.
Herbert C. Hoover Building | Introduction
Six Companies was not required to complete work on one item, a concrete plug for one of the bypass tunnels, as the tunnel had to be used to take in irrigation water until the powerhouse went into operation.
Hoover Dam | Dedication and completion
The American Dam was built in 1937–1938 at a cost to the United States Government of $667,398. It is long, with thirteen radial gates. Water is diverted into the American Canal over a weir, parallel to the general course of the river, with intake controlled by two radial gates. The dam has a normal operating depth of , has a structural height of , and is flanked by earthen dikes. The crest elevation is above sea level, The main spillway into the Rio Grande has a capacity of .
American Dam | Structure
He served as the Director of the Reclamation Service (now the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation) from 1914 to 1923. Boulder Dam (later called Hoover Dam) was fundamentally the conception of Arthur Powell Davis. A month before he died, Arthur Powell Davis was appointed Consulting Engineer on the dam project. Mr. Davis had his vision back in 1902. He died in Oakland, California, on August 7, 1933, and is buried in St. Paul’s Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C., along with his wife, Elizabeth B. Davis. The Davis Dam is named after him. Arthur Davis brought more to his job than ambition.
Arthur Powell Davis | Introduction
Before the dam could be built, the Colorado River needed to be diverted away from the construction site. To accomplish this, four diversion tunnels were driven through the canyon walls, two on the Nevada side and two on the Arizona side. These tunnels were in diameter. Their combined length was nearly 16,000 ft, or more than . The contract required these tunnels to be completed by October 1, 1933, with a $3,000-per-day fine to be assessed for any delay. To meet the deadline, Six Companies had to complete work by early 1933, since only in late fall and winter was the water level in the river low enough to safely divert.
Hoover Dam | River diversion
One potential site at Boulder Canyon was bisected by a geologic fault; two others were so narrow there was no space for a construction camp at the bottom of the canyon or for a spillway. The Service investigated Black Canyon and found it ideal; a railway could be laid from the railhead in Las Vegas to the top of the dam site. Despite the site change, the dam project was referred to as the "Boulder Canyon Project". With little guidance on water allocation from the Supreme Court, proponents of the dam feared endless litigation. Delph Carpenter, a Colorado attorney, proposed that the seven states which fell within the river's basin (California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming) form an interstate compact, with the approval of Congress.
Hoover Dam | Planning and agreements
The dam was eventually completed in 1968.
Daniel-Johnson dam | Construction
The 1927 Mississippi flood made Midwestern and Southern congressmen and senators more sympathetic toward the dam project. On March 12, 1928, the failure of the St. Francis Dam, constructed by the city of Los Angeles, caused a disastrous flood that killed up to 600 people. As that dam was a curved-gravity type, similar in design to the arch-gravity as was proposed for the Black Canyon dam, opponents claimed that the Black Canyon dam's safety could not be guaranteed. Congress authorized a board of engineers to review plans for the proposed dam. The Colorado River Board found the project feasible, but warned that should the dam fail, every downstream Colorado River community would be destroyed, and that the river might change course and empty into the Salton Sea.
Hoover Dam | Planning and agreements
With the onset of the Great Depression in October 1929, unemployment became a severe problem in Montana. The Franklin D. Roosevelt administration saw dam building as a way of providing unemployment relief. On December 12, 1933, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6491, which turned federal land over to the United States Army Corps of Engineers for the construction of the Fort Peck Dam. Additional lands were turned over to the Corps on May 8, 1934 (Executive Order 6707), September 11, 1934 (Executive Order 6841), and April 3, 1936 (Executive Order 7331). In 1929, President Herbert Hoover signed into law the Migratory Bird Conservation Act, which authorized the federal government to purchase or lease land for the establishment of waterfowl refuges.
Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge | History
The J. Edgar Hoover Building is a low-rise office building located at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It is the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Planning for the building began in 1962, and a site was formally selected in January 1963. Design work, focusing on avoiding the blocky, monolithic structure typical of most federal architecture at the time, began in 1963 and was largely complete by 1964 (although final approval did not occur until 1967). Land clearance and excavation of the foundation began in March 1965; delays in obtaining congressional funding meant that only the three-story substructure was complete by 1970.
J. Edgar Hoover Building | Introduction
This, one of the world's highest masonry dams, was started in 1906 and opened by President Theodore Roosevelt on March 18, 1911. The beginning of federal production of electric power occurred at Roosevelt Dam when Congress, in 1906, authorized the Reclamation Service to develop and sell hydroelectric power at the Salt River Project. The Reclamation Act of 1902 created the United States Reclamation Service whose purpose was to design and construct irrigation projects to aid the settlement of the arid west. Previous efforts by individuals and private irrigation companies were inadequate and often unsuccessful. With the creation of the Reclamation Service, the lead role of the federal government in developing large-scale irrigation projects was firmly established.
Theodore Roosevelt Dam | History
The buckets were then suspended from aerial cableways which were used to deliver the bucket to a specific column. As the required grade of aggregate in the concrete differed depending on placement in the dam (from pea-sized gravel to 9-inch or 23 cm stones), it was vital that the bucket be maneuvered to the proper column. When the bottom of the bucket opened up, disgorging of concrete, a team of men worked it throughout the form. Although there are myths that men were caught in the pour and are entombed in the dam to this day, each bucket deepened the concrete in a form by only , and Six Companies engineers would not have permitted a flaw caused by the presence of a human body.
Hoover Dam | Concrete
Theodore Roosevelt Lake (usually called Roosevelt Lake, sometimes Lake Roosevelt) is a large reservoir formed by Theodore Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River in Arizona as part of the Salt River Project (SRP). Located roughly 80 miles (130 km) northeast of Phoenix in the Salt River Valley, Theodore Roosevelt is the largest lake or reservoir located entirely within the state of Arizona (Lake Mead and Lake Powell are larger but both are located partially within the neighboring states of Nevada and Utah respectively). Both the reservoir and the masonry dam that created it, Roosevelt Dam, were named for U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt who dedicated the dam himself in March 1911.
Theodore Roosevelt Lake | Introduction
State Route 188 travels along the shore of the lake for much of its length. Tonto National Monument is located 4 miles (6 km) from Roosevelt Dam. Parts of the monument provide views of much of the reservoir.
Theodore Roosevelt Lake | Geography
In 1939, superintendent of the Skagit Hydroelectric Project James Delmage Ross has died, so Ruby Dam was renamed Ross Dam in his memory. In 1943 a consortium of contractors including Morrison-Knudsen, which had previously participated in construction of Hoover Dam, began new construction on the dam ultimately raising its height to . Energy demands during World War II coincided with an energy shortage in Seattle, requiring that the dam be constructed quickly, but the dam did not generate any power until many years after the war ended. This third phase was finished in 1949, to . This height would cause the reservoir at full pool to extend slightly past the Washington-British Columbia border.
Ross Dam | Third phase
In the 1960s, the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum first opened to maintain Hoover's presidential papers and memorabilia. Herbert and his wife, First Lady Lou Henry Hoover, are buried under a monument designed by William Wagner. After the death of Herbert Hoover, an tallgrass prairie was developed.
Herbert Hoover National Historic Site | Introduction
As the city grew, it gathered additional features, including numerous stores, a hospital, and even a jeweler. It was intended to serve a maximum population of eight thousand, accounting for the workers' families; the peak workforce would eventually exceed 2,500 in the busiest phases of construction. The engineer in charge of the project would be Lem F. Wylie, who had worked on Hoover Dam and had previously designed six other USBR dams. Prior to and during construction, three separate grants were issued by the National Park Service to document and recover artifacts of historical cultures along the river. These went to University of Utah historian C.
Glen Canyon Dam | Site preparations
Louis Rea "Doug" Douglass (March 2, 1888 – January 13, 1979) was an American civil engineer. He spent more than 20 years with the United States Bureau of Reclamation and was in charge of Hoover Dam and the surrounding park land for four years. From 1933 to 1954, Douglass worked for the Bureau of Reclamation. He prepared construction drawings for Hoover Dam and other aspects of the Boulder Canyon Project. During the mid-1940s, he was an Assistant Regional Director with responsibility for the Davis Dam 67 miles downstream from Hoover Dam. In 1949, he was sent to Japan where he prepared a study and recommendations for the design and construction of dams and irrigation works.
Louis R. Douglass | Introduction
One of the first federal projects undertaken by the National Reclamation Act was the construction of the Theodore Roosevelt Dam in Arizona, which would provide the vital water supply and hydroelectric power to promote the growth of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Although the remote site of this future dam proved to be a logistical nightmare, the solution to this problem was the construction of the Apache Trail. Thus, the Apache Trail served as the critical supply road, facilitating the transport of materials and equipment to the dam site.
Apache Trail | The Theodore Roosevelt Dam