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Hoover Dam in Nevada

The Hoover Dam in Nevada is the main source of electrical power, irrigation, and flood control for the entire Southwestern United States. It is an engineering feat that has become world famous. The dam straddles the border between Arizona and Nevada on the Colorado River and has become a tremendous tourist destination besides serving as a dam. Millions of visitors come to see this dam each year.

The Hoover Dam gets its name from the country's 31st President Herbert Hoover who was supporting the project long before he became the President. It was, in fact, during his stint as the Secretary of Commerce that Hoover began developing a plan that would tame the unruly Colorado River and provide necessary electricity and irrigation to the peoples of Southern California, Nevada, and Arizona. It culminated in the legislation called the Boulder Canyon Project Act that was passed in 1928.

The construction of Hoover Dam that was the largest dam in the entire world at the time, started in September of 1930 and was completed in a mere five years. The engineers developed a way to quickly cool and harden the concrete in order to expedite the project, which would have otherwise taken at least ten years to complete. The dam only cost $49,000,000 to build and the entire Boulder Canyon Project, which encompasses Hoover Dam, Imperial Dam, and the American Canal cost a total of $165,000,000.

A project of this size does give birth to legends. It is estimated that 16,000 men and women toiled day and night to complete the project. Some casualties did take place, put no one is buried inside the walls of this dam, as popularly believed.

Hoover Dam's measurements are absolutely astounding, especially for the early 1930s. More than 4,360,000 cubic yards of pure concrete went into its construction, which made the dam the first edifice to contain more masonry than Egypt's Great Pyramids. Now, the dam ranks as the 18th highest dam in the world, standing 726.4 feet tall and measuring 1,244 feet wide at the top of the structure. The dam weighs an estimated 6.6 million tons!

Before the construction of the dam, the Colorado River often breeched its banks and flooded nearby towns and fields. It was to this purpose that the Hoover Dam and Boulder Canyon project was conceived. With the completion of this project, the destructive nature of this river gave way to a constructive one and its power was harnessed for the good of the residents of Southern California, Nevada, and Arizona. The 17 generators of the Dam could produce about 2000 megawatts of electricity.

In addition to the production of power and irrigation measures for the Southwest, Hoover Dam also created a fantastic body of water, Lake Mead. A whopping 146,000 acres, Lake Mead is a fantastic destination that is visited by flocks of individuals each year. The warm Nevada sunshine graces the lake that is situated a few miles from Sin City itself, Las Vegas.

If you are interested in visiting Hoover Dam, be sure to check out the visitor’s center and take a behind the scenes tour. Completed in the mid-1990s, the visitor’s center is interactive and full of information about the building and purpose of the dam. If you plan on going on a walking tour, be sure to bring your walking shoes, as you will walk across the very top of the dam itself.

Article Source: http://www.travelarticles.org

Joy Kenzic is the chief editor for F nevada, the web's premier resource for information about nevada. For questions or comments about this article visit: www.fornevada.com/articles
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