It is also the perfect location for numerous films that have been produced over the years. Hoover Dam is an impressive sight to see. This allows visitors a chance to enjoy water sports, go swimming, and do some fishing during their stay in the area. At its deepest point when full, Lake Mead has a depth of 590 feet. It offers visitors over 500 miles of shoreline to enjoy. Lake Mead was created as a reservoir behind the dam and it is the largest artificial reservoir of its kind in the US. It isn’t just the electricity that helps Hoover Dam pay for itself. It would take 18 months altogether, including a 6 day strike that happened in August 1931. The tunnels had to be drilled out by a specific time, so many workers would spend 10 hour days in 140F temperatures to get the job done. One of those tunnels was more than 3 miles long and had a diameter of more than 3 miles as well to accommodate seasonal flooding. Engineers created tunnels around the work site that would funnel the river water away from its original course through the cliff faces. To build the dam over a 4 year period, something had to be done with the Colorado River. After surveying the site, however, the dam was moved to where it stands today because it could control the waters of the Colorado River more effectively. This is because the original site of the dam was supposed to be at Boulder Canyon. A Different Nameīefore the dam was named after Herbert Hoover, the original name was to be Boulder Dam. With 17 turbines active, more than 1 million people can benefit from the power that Hoover Dam is able to create. In 1936, just one year after it was finished, electrical power generation was also added to the dam’s purpose. It was initially created to help control local flooding and provide some infrastructure for irrigation. The idea that Hoover Dam was built to create a reservoir is not entirely correct. It required 6 companies to come together, pooling their resources, to get the contract. The base of the dame is 660 feet thick.Įven the contractor that was eventually hired to build the dam had to put together a $5 million performance bond before they’d be awarded with the project. Hoover Dam stands 726 feet tall at its highest point and is 1,200 feet wide. The cost has much to do with its arch gravity design. Putting that investment into today’s monetary value, that’s about $700 million. In the 4 years it took to construct the dam, the cost was $49 million. When Hoover Dam was built, it would be the most expensive engineer project that the US had ever started. It is a fitting name considering Hoover himself was also an engineer. It’s named after Herbert Hoover, who pushed for its construction when he served in the federal government as Secretary of Commerce and then later as the nation’s President. When it comes to iconic structures in the US, the Hoover Dam is definitely in that conversation.
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