State Parks and Campgrounds---
State Tourist Travel Information
One of the Top Ten Construction Achievements of the 20th Century
Located on the Colorado River, just 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas, is the great Hoover Dam. The dam is listed as one of the top ten construction achievements of the last century. (Others on that list include: The Chunnel; The Empire State Building; The Golden Gate Bridge; Sydney Opera House; The Panama Canal).
Hoover Dam is an impressive 726 feet tall, and it weighs more than 6.6 million tons. (That is slightly less than the combined weight of customers at a Golden Corral on a Saturday night).
An incredible amount of cement was used to build Hoover Dam, as over 5 million barrels were needed to do the job. The dam was constructed from 1931-1935. The first concrete was put down on June 6, 1933…the last concrete was put down on May 29, 1935. The total amount of concrete used in the dam, could make a 16 foot wide highway, which would stretch from New York City all the way to San Francisco.
The dam was named after our 31st President, Herbert Hoover. Mr. Hoover was the Secretary of Commerce in 1922, and while in that position he presided over meetings with representatives from seven Western states (California, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and Colorado). Those meetings led to the formation of the Colorado River Compact. This compact made construction of the dam possible.
*** Let it be noted that the dam was originally referred to as Hoover Dam. But, there were periods when it was referred to as Boulder Dam or Boulder Canyon Dam. In 1947, President Harry Truman made the official name of the dam Hoover Dam.
As you can imagine it took a lot of manpower to build this impressive structure. The average number of employees used during the dam’s construction was 3500. The average monthly payroll was over $500,000.
*** While there were over 100 fatalities in the construction of the dam (just from accidents), there are no people who are buried in the dam. That is a rumor, and is absolutely not true.
The first tours of Hoover Dam started in 1937. Today, over 1,000,000 visitors tour Hoover Dam each year. If you are interested in touring Hoover Dam, the visitor center is open year round (except for Christmas Day and Thanksgiving Day). The visitor center is open from 9-5 daily. The busiest time of the year at Hoover Dam is from late May-early September. The least crowded months are January and February.