Placing the concrete lining in 56-foot diameter diversion tunnel bores , Hoover Dam , 1934 .
in three eight-hour shifts , 24 hours a day , every day . Contractors faced interim deadlines and financial penalties for missing them . Workers had to deal with intensely hot weather that made working conditions particularly difficult , especially for those working inside one of the tunnels , spillways or subterranean penstocks . The project was plagued by accidents , deaths ( 112 ), labor problems , racial discrimination and geologic surprises .
At one point in 1932 , Congress cut the dam ’ s yearly appropriation from $ 10 million to $ 6 million , threatening the project ’ s suspension . Six Companies Director Henry J . Kaiser persuaded the legislators to restore the project ’ s funding . Meanwhile , the Bureau of Reclamation issued change orders related to necessary alterations in the design of penstock tunnels and the powerplant ; they added $ 5.8 million to the cost of the dam .
Despite many difficulties , the bulk of the Boulder Dam was essentially completed in May 1935 , which was more than two years ahead of schedule and over the original budget by only the relatively small amount noted above . President Franklin D . Roosevelt dedicated the world-class structure four months later . Reflecting the attitude of the times he noted that the previously “ unused ” waters of the Colorado would
now be “ a great national possession .” After the addition of some architectural enhancements , Six Companies formally transferred the dam to Secretary of Interior Ickes in March 1936 . Completing the powerplant and installing its first three generators took until October , when that facility began using water from the 100-mile long , 400-foot-deep Lake Mead reservoir to produce electricity in Los Angeles , and the Six Companies partners realized the final portion of their profit of more than $ 10 million for the project . The Boulder Canyon Project ’ s eponymous dam and the associated All-American Canal ( built from 1934 to 1939 ) did indeed provide irrigation , power generation , flood control and water supply to many areas in the Southwest . Two smaller dams the Bureau of Reclamation completed in 1938 ( Imperial and Parker ) delivered similar results . In 1946 , an emboldened Bureau suggested that the Colorado River had been transformed from a “ national menace ” to a “ natural resource ” and listed 143 potential construction projects that would further harness the river for mankind ’ s use . The following year , Congress restored the Hoover name to the first of the many structures built to “ corral the Colorado .” The country was blissfully unaware that subsequent decades would bear witness to the ultimate futility of that objective .
Michael A . Martorelli is a Director Emeritus at Fairmount Partners and a frequent contributor to Financial History . He earned his MA in History from American Military University .
Sources
Hiltzik , Michael . Colossus : Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century . Free Press . 2010 .
Rowley , William D . The Bureau of Reclamation : Origins and Growth to 1945 , Volume I . Bureau of Reclamation , US Department of the Interior . 2006 .
Stevens , Joseph E . Hoover Dam : An American Adventure . University of Oklahoma Press . 1988 .
US Congress . Senate . Problems of Imperial Valley and Vicinity . 67th Congress , 2nd session , March 1 , 1922 .
US Department of the Interior . The Bureau of Reclamation . The Colorado River : A Natural Menace Becomes a National Resource . March 1946 .
Wiltshire , Richard L ., David R . Gilbert and Jerry R . Rogers , eds . Hoover Dam 75th Anniversary History Symposium . American Society of Civil Engineers . 2010 .
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