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Hoover Dam
 
Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada. When completed in 1936, it was both the world's largest hydroelectric power generating station and the world's largest concrete structure. It was surpassed in both these respects by the Grand Coulee Dam in 1945. It is currently the world's 38th-largest hydroelectric generating station.
This dam, located 30 mi (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada, is named after Herbert Hoover, who played an instrumental role in its construction, first as the Secretary of Commerce, and then later, as the President of the United States. Construction began in 1931 and the dam was dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on September 30, 1935 but it was not fully completed until 1936, which was still more than two years ahead of schedule.The dam and the power plant are operated by the Bureau of Reclamation of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, Hoover Dam was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985.
Lake Mead is the reservoir created by the dam, named after Elwood Mead, who oversaw the construction of the dam.
Facts
Pets are not allowed anywhere on Hoover Dam!
It is ..
-- 726.4 feet high ..
-- 1,244 feet across at the top ..
-- 660 feet thick at the base ..
-- 45 feet thick at the top ..
It ...
-- weighs 6.6 millions ton ...
-- can store up 2 years 'average' flow from the Colorado River ...
-- total storage capacity can be measured in 30,500,000 acre feet ...
-- the surface area of Lake Mead is 146,000 acres ...
-- the maximum water surface elevation of Lake Mead is 1229 FT
-- the maximum depth of Lake Mead is 590 FT
-- the length of Lake Mead is 115 miles...
-- has a power generating capacity of 2.8 million kilowatts...
-- cost ONLY $49,000,000 to build Hoover Dam...
-- $165,000,000 to complete the Boulder Canyon Project which includes the Imperial Dam, Hoover Dam and the American Canal...
-- the dam contains about 4,360,000 cubic yards of concrete...
-- there are 96,000,000 LB's of steel and metalwork used by the dam - but none of it IN the dam...
-- NO ONE IS BURIED IN THE DAM...
-- about 16,000 men and women worked on the project...
-- about 3,500 people were employed at any specific time.
-- Officially ... There were 96 'industrial' fatalities. during the construction of Hoover Dam. This figure does not include deaths by other means including heat, heart problems and curiously, pneumonia. Another estimate is 112 and that supposedly includes a longer time frame than just the construction period. Oddly the larger estimate also holds some irony. It begins the count on December 20, 1922 with J.G. Tierney a Bureau of Reclamation employee who was part of a geological survey and drowned when he fell from a barge. Exactly 13 years later, in 1935, his son Patrick W. Tierney, fell to his death from an intake tower.
-- Construction on the Hoover Dam began September 30, 1930. The last concrete was poured in 1935.
-- Hoover Dam was the first single structure to contain more masonry than the Great Pyramid at Giza.
-- The concrete used to make Hoover Dam was set with cooling tubes that sped up a process which would normally have taken more than a century to complete.
-- Once the worlds highest dam, it now ranks as 18th highest.
-- Hoover Dam can store up to 9.2 trillion gallons of the Colorado River in its reservoir, Lake Mead.
-- Hoover Dam has 17 generators giving it the capacity to produce over 2,000 megawatts of electricity.
-- Hoover Dam is part of a system which provides water to over 25 million people in the southwest United States.
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