A Trip to Hoover Dam

Just like 7 million other people last year, we visited Boulder, Black Canyon, Hoover Dam.

No doubt about it …..it appears that the lake is getting lower and lower. 

If I went into all the facts about building the dam…you would all leave me….So here is what I’m going to give you about my knowledge….I grew up thinking the name of the dam was Boulder Dam. For several years as a child, I thought there were two dams, Boulder and Hoover. The planned location of the dam was about 10 miles upstream from where it is today in a place called Boulder Canyon, thus the first name, Boulder Dam. In the early design phase, somebody figured out if they moved the location to Black Canyon, where the dam is today, it would have a larger reservoir and the rock walls of Black Canyon was stronger than Boulder Canyon. So they moved it, on paper. This was in the late 1920's. Since names don't mean much to engineers, they continued to call it Boulder Dam. By rights, they should have changed it to Black Canyon Dam which would have followed the precedent of names like Glen Canyon Dam which is the dam upstream. And so, with a little confusion about the name, it must be time for some politicians to get involved to straighten it out, right? In 1930, Hoover was president and had hopes of winning a second term so his administration took advantage of the change in location and began calling the project, The Hoover Dam… That made some sense because Hoover was instrumental in pushing the work on the Colorado River even before he was president. Hoover didn't win re-election and FDR becomes president.

Look at the new highway bridge that diverts traffic from crossing the dam as in the past…the bridge was completed in 2010!

 

We traveled across that beautiful bridge….maybe a questionable decision because that is how we ended up in Oatman, Arizona by choice!