Eiffel Tower

Clock Tower

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Statue of Liberty

Channel Tunnel

Panama Canal

Hoover Dam

References

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Imagine that the United States is in the middle of a Great Depression and thousands and thousands of people are out of work and no jobs are available. The government decides to fund public works projects all over the country so that citizens will be able to have jobs to support themselves. One of these projects is to build a dam on the Colorado River in the Black Canyon on the Arizona-Nevada border. The purpose of the dam is to control floods on the Colorado River and supply hydroelectric power for the area.

Construction on the dam started in 1928. In 1931, it was officially named Hoover Dam in honor of President Herbert Hoover. Congress made that the official name in 1947.

The dam took five years to build. Many men brought their families to the Black Canyon with them while they worked on the project. The working conditions were not ideal. Many days in the summer the temperature never went below 100 degrees, day or night. The heat got to many of the men working. If they passed out on the job, they were packed in ice and taken to the hospital in Las Vegas. If the heat didn't get them, the men had to be careful they were not being gassed by the trucks and machines running in the underground tunnels where they worked.

Hoover Dam rises 726 feet high. After the dam was built a minimum amount of 515 feet of water was released each second (this was at 150 miles per hour). When the gates were open to maximum capacity they released 28,434 gallons of water per second. (That would fill the average backyard pool in a second.)

The reservoir created by damming the Colorado River is called Lake Mead. It is one of the largest man-made lakes in the world.

Hoover Dam is a National Historic Landmark and has been rated by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of America's Seven Modern Civil Engineering Wonders. Now, more than 60 years after it was built, it still provides flood control and electric power for a large area.