Hoover Dam Pictures & Information - Hydroelectric Power Plant At The Black Canyon On The Colorado River

Hoover Dam Pictures - Nevada & Arizona Border
Photos & information from a trip to the Hoover Dam (a.k.a. Boulder Dam) located in Black Canyon on the Colorado River.

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U.S. 93

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On our way from Las Vegas where we kicked off our Spring Break vacation, we passed through the Hoover Dam on the way to Lake Havasu.

This modern miracle of engineering was built from 1931 to 1936 for about $50 million dollars at Black Canyon on the Colorado River. The concrete gravity arch dam was named after Herbert Hoover who was president of the USA when construction began.

Hoover Dam lies directly on the border of Arizona and Nevada. When you cross over the dam on US 93, the time zone changes from Pacific to Mountain or vice versa depending on your direction of travel.

The Hoover Dam, the hydroelectric power plant, and the visitor's center together receive about 15,000 visitors per day or about 8 to 10 million people per year.

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Because of security concerns since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the Hoover Dam administration has had to implement tightened restrictions on the vehicles that pass through this very important section of U.S. 93. The 3.5 mile Hoover Dam Bypass project hopes to alleviate the traffic and security issues by re-routing semi-trailer trucks, and other commercial vehicles over the Colorado River Bridge which is under construction. Since U.S. 93 is a NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) route, it sees it's fair share of heavy truck traffic. The Hoover Dam Bypass should be complete in June of 2010. The bypass bridge will allow truckers to get through the area more efficiently and reduce the traffic congestion for tourists visiting the dam.

Water Turbines

Bronze Angel Monument

Above you can see a few pictures of the bronze angel monument at the Hoover Dam. The sculpture commemorates the over 100 workers who passed away during construction.

Concrete Gravity Arch Dam

The history of the dam began in 1869 when a one armed Civil War veteran named John W. Powell made the first trip down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon. His topography and geological information from the area paved the way for the future dam. Then in 1902 Theodore Roosevelt, the U.S. president at the time, put the Reclamation Act into effect which mobilized a team of engineers to figure out a way to utilize the great power potential of the Colorado River. In 1905, the Colorado River over flowed due to massive rains and caused a 150 square mile lake in Imperial Valley. Years later after the floods that destroyed farms and claimed lives, the Fall-Davis report advises congress to build a dam on the Colorado River and monetize the project by later selling the hydroelectric power to cities in the Southwest. Finally in 1928 the Boulder Canyon Project act passes both legislative houses and was signed by President Calvin Coolidge. Then in 1931, Six Companies Inc won the bid to build the Hoover Dam at a price of almost 50 million dollars. Late in 1935, president Franklin Roosevelt leads the dedication of the dam.

Black Canyon

The Hoover Dam played a key role in the Transformers (2007) movie that I just saw, and it has also been featured in many other television programs or movies including "The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World", Apocalypse (NBC mini series), Vegas Vacation, the original Superman movie, Universal Soldier, and Beavis & Butthead Do America.

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