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KF5JRV > TODAY 07.07.20 11:04z 32 Lines 2541 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 53345_KF5JRV
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Subj: Today in History - Jul 07
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Sent: 200707/1054Z 53345@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.20
On July 7, 1930, construction of the Hoover Dam begins. Over the next five years, a total of 21,000 men would work
ceaselessly to produce what would be the largest dam of its time, as well as one of the largest manmade structures
in the world.
Although the dam would take only five years to build, its construction was nearly 30 years in the making. Arthur
Powell Davis, an engineer from the Bureau of Reclamation, originally had his vision for the Hoover Dam back in
1902, and his engineering report on the topic became the guiding document when plans were finally made to begin
the dam in 1922.
Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States and a committed conservationist, played a crucial role in
making Davis’ vision a reality. As secretary of commerce in 1921, Hoover devoted himself to the erection of a
high dam in Boulder Canyon. The dam would provide essential flood control, which would prevent damage to
downstream farming communities that suffered each year when snow from the Rocky Mountains melted and
joined the Colorado River. Further, the dam would allow the expansion of irrigated farming in the desert, and
would provide a dependable supply of water for Los Angeles and other southern California communities.
Even with Hoover’s exuberant backing and a regional consensus around the need to build the dam, Congressional
approval and individual state cooperation were slow in coming. For many years, water rights had been a source
of contention among the western states that had claims on the Colorado River. To address this issue, Hoover
negotiated the Colorado River Compact, which broke the river basin into two regions with the water divided
between them. Hoover then had to introduce and re-introduce the bill to build the dam several times over the
next few years before the House and Senate finally approved the bill in 1928.
In 1929, Hoover, now president, signed the Colorado River Compact into law, claiming it was “the most extensive
action ever taken by a group of states under the provisions of the Constitution permitting compacts between
states.
Once preparations were made, the Hoover Dam’s construction sprinted forward: The contractors finished their work
two years ahead of schedule and millions of dollars under budget. Today, the Hoover Dam generates enough
energy each year to serve over a million people, and stands, in Hoover Dam artist Oskar Hansen’s words, as
“a monument to collective genius exerting itself in community efforts around a common need or ideal.
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