Hoover Dam, Nevada-Arizona border, USA

Trip to Hoover Dam (once known as the Boulder Dam) located on the Nevada-Arizona border on Aug. 15, 2011. Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River.

Hoover Dam was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on Sept. 30, 1935 by President Franklin Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over one hundred lives. The dam was named in honor of President Herbert Hoover.

The Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated since about 1900 for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power. 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 on 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 the lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties. Nevertheless, Six Companies turned over the dam to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years before schedule.

Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, and is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 25 miles (40 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.

Just downstream from Hoover Dam is the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge with two concrete arches that stretch 1,060 feet across the Black Canyon. Completed in late 2010 at a cost of US$240 million, the bridge links Nevada and Arizona along U.S. Highway 93.

The bridge is a big tourist attraction as it is the longest bridge of its kind in the Western Hemisphere and the second-tallest bridge in the United States after the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado.

The bridge is named after former Nevada Gov. Mike O’Callaghan and Pat Tillman, the former NFL player who was killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire.