The builders soon constructed an observation platform on the canyon rim to keep the tourists away from the construction site. Most had to travel many miles, at the end through a hostile desert, to reach this location on the border between Nevada and Arizona. Americans began coming to see the big dam long before it was completed four years later. It claimed the lives of 96 of the 21,000 men who worked on it.Ĭonstruction began in 1931. It stretched the abilities of its builders to the limits. Only a huge dam could stand up to the pressure of so much water.īuilding such a mammoth structure presented unprecedented challenges to the engineers of the Bureau of Reclamation. ![]() ![]() The amount of water in the lake, when full, could cover the whole state of Connecticut ten feet deep. It held back what was then, and still is, the largest man-made lake in the United States. The amount of concrete used in building it was enough to pave a road stretching from San Francisco to New York City. Each spillway, designed to let floodwaters pass without harming the dam itself, can handle the volume of water that flows over Niagara Falls. Its base is as thick as two football fields are long. It was the highest dam in the world when it was completed in 1935. Hoover Dam is as tall as a 60-story building. This lesson is part of the National Park Service’s Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) program. ![]() (Bureau of Reclamation Andrew Pernick, photographer)
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