Hoover Dam is located at the Black Canyon by the Colorado River and right on the border of Nevada and Arizona. It is located at about 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas . The construction of the Hoover Dam started in the year 1931. The dam's construction took place very swiftly and it was completed in the year 1935. The expected year of completion was 1937 and the work on this dam was completed two years earlier. This was due to the personal interest of Hoover in this dam. The dam the interior Department of the United States operates this dam. In 1985 the dam was added to the list of those places which arte considered to be Historic Landmarks of the nation. In the year 1981 it got a place in the list of those places which are called as National Historic places.
The Dam is made up of concrete and it is also called as Boulder Dam. It is a very well built Dam. The dam was constructed after a long paper work and its feasibility report was prepared after an in depth level of study or the area. The Dam is named after the person who was involved in the construction of this dam, Herbert Hoover. Hoover was one of the key persons who were involved in the construction of this dam. Hoover worked as the Commerce Secretary for few years and later he served as the president of America. As there were a lot of efforts from his part to construct this dam, the dam was named after him.
Every dam has a reservoir which is most often in the form of a lake. The lake which has been constructed for the Hoover dam is called as Mead Lake. The name of this lake has been after the name of Elwood Mead. Elwood Mead was the person who supervised the construction of Hoover dam. The work in this project actually started in the year 1922. At that time a commission was formed to discuss the feasibility of this dam. The commission had members from all the states of the basin area and it also had members form the federal government. The purpose was to reach a unanimous decision in the favor or against the construction of this dam. At that time Warren Harding was the president of the United States of America while Herbert Hoover was on the team, as the representative of the federal government. At that time he was serving as the Secretary of commerce. There were 7 states involved in this construction and in 1922 Hoover met all of the governors of the seven states. The decision was to be taken in relation to the use and sharing of water of Colorado River between the 7 states. The pact was reached and was signed in the month of November in the year 1922. The pact is called as Colorado River pact. According to this pact the river was divided into two parts and the basin eras also divided into upper and lower basin of this river. This agreement is also called as Hoover compromise. Due to this compromise the construction of the Hoover Dam became possible. Otherwise it wouldn't have been possible for the United States government to construct this dam without the agreement of all the 7 states in this regard.
The contract of the construction of the Hoover dam was given in 1931 to Six companies Inc. This company was a joint venture of six companies hence the name. Frank Crowe was the Chief executive of this company and he invented some new techniques for quick construction of this dam. To remove the heat which is generated during the construction of the dam when the concrete is poured, refrigerated cold water was run through the tubes. Other companies were hired by the Six Companies Inc to help in this refrigeration phase. The great Depression hit the Americas in the 1930s and due to this depression there were lots of jobs which were created in this project. This is one of the reasons of the quick production and construction of this dam. There were many problems which were faced by the construction company during the construction of this dam. There were also few epidemics along with other problems the construction company faced.
The structure of the dam is very well designed. To avoid flooding to cofferdams were also constructed alongside the main dam. 4 diversion tunnels were constructed when the construction started. These diversions were meant to avoid the flow of river water from the construction area. The construction actually started off with the rock clearance phase. The work on the construction of this dam was well managed. The dam is filled with concrete. It is a very solidly built dam which suits according to the location of this dam.
The generator of this dam is of 17 turbines. The power house has the capacity of producing more than 2,000 megawatts of hydroelectric power. The dam is located at the border of the time zone of Pacific and Mountain. Total 114 deaths were officially recorded during the construction of this dam.