How tall hoover dam

This led the team working on the dam to call it Boulder Dam. Later, when the construction site was moved to Black Canyon, the name stuck and the dam continued to be called Boulder Dam. So how did it come to be called Hoover Dam? In September , construction began on a railroad line that would terminate at the dam site. During the groundbreaking ceremony for the line, it was announced that the new dam would be named for the then president, Herbert Hoover.

In fact, the city was built in solely to house the 5, workers employed to build the dam. Boulder City was constructed on federal land and had no local mayor or other elected officials. Oddly enough, the entire city was managed by an employee of the U. Bureau of Reclamation. This person had the power to institute rules as he saw fit. Hoover Dam was built between and , and those five years were not without disaster. Reports from the construction site list 96 deaths due to accidents.

In addition, 42 workers were reported to have died from illnesses while the dam was being built. However, today some historians believe that it was exposure to carbon monoxide in construction tunnels resulting in carbon monoxide poisoning, which actually caused these additional deaths. To combat further attempts on the dam, U. Work started in April That summer, Southern Nevada sweltered through record-breaking temperatures for months.

Do you think he made a good case? If you were reading or listening to Roosevelt's speech in , would you think that Hoover Dam was one of his New Deal work relief projects?

Was it? This image shows three views of the dam. The left side shows what a visitor looking upstream at the dam would actually see. The cut-away view on the right side shows features that would not be visible from the surface. Although not shown in the illustration, all of the features shown in the cut-away are duplicated on the other side of the dam. The cross section in the upper right hand corner is a side view. Look carefully at the cut-away view. Can you trace the course the water follows from the reservoir through the power plants and outlet works and then back into the river?

How does that change if the level of the reservoir is getting too high? How many of the features mentioned in Reading 2 can you find in this image? Is the image or the reading more useful in helping you understand Hoover Dam?

Reclamation engineers prepared hundreds of drawings for the construction company—all much more detailed than this simplified illustration. Why do you think the detailed drawings were necessary? How do you think the engineers decided where to locate the features shown here? Look at the drawing in the upper right hand corner. Why do you think the dam had to be so thick at the bottom? Find the penstocks that carry the water from the intake towers to the horseshoe-shaped powerhouse at the foot of the dam.

One of the definitions of "penstock" is a pipe or conduit that carries water from a reservoir to electrical generating equipment. The Boulder Canyon Project Act said that the cost of building Hoover Dam had to be repaid by selling electricity and that contracts for all the electricity had to be signed before construction began. Why do you think that was required? When the contracts were signed, almost two thirds of the electricity went to Southern California.

Why do you think that might have been the case? Boulder City Museum and Historical Association; photographer unknown. How many men can you count in Photo 1? Why do you think so many people came to this remote and hostile location looking for work? What were conditions like in America in ?

Refer to your textbook if necessary. Describe the setting in these images. The average high temperature in this area in August is degrees. Summer temperatures in the canyon can easily reach degrees. The area is also prone to cloudbursts, high winds, and sudden floods. What do you think working here would be like? Do you think you would have come here looking for a job? Many of the men seeking work brought their families with them.

Why do you think they did that? Work on the dam began sooner than originally planned. Housing for workers in the new town of Boulder City wasn't ready when these photos were taken.

Families created a temporary community called "Ragtown. Describe the shelter shown in Photo 2. Do you think this would have been adequate? The shelter seems to be located next to the river. Do you think that would have been a safe place to live?

Reread Lesson No. In addition to drilling holes for dynamite, the scalers also knocked unstable rock loose by hand. Why was this work necessary? What safety equipment can you find in this picture? How much protection do you think it offered against rock falling down from above?

Look at the upper right hand corner of the image. This shows the floor of the canyon, hundreds of feet below. Do you think the safety equipment would have kept the men from falling? How many high scalers can you find in this photo? Other historic photos show dense rows of men working close together on the canyon walls. How safe do you think this would have been? Many newspapers and magazines featured descriptions and images of the "high scalers.

Do you think you would have wanted to do work like this? The jumbos backed up to the working faces in the tunnels so that men using all the drills could work at the same time and higher on the wall without the need for scaffolds. The men filled the holes they had drilled with dynamite and then the jumbos drove away. After the dynamite was detonated, the rock dislodged by the explosion was taken out of the tunnel.

Eventually they removed 1. Look carefully at this image. Look for the drills they look a little like machine guns. How many of them can you count? Why do you think Six Companies developed this process? How do you think they might have done this work without the jumbos? Why do you think Six Companies was so anxious to get this part of the project done quickly? Refer to Reading 2 if necessary. Internal combustion engines produce carbon monoxide. State laws prohibited using them in enclosed spaces like tunnels for health and safety reasons, but Six Companies used the jumbos anyway.

What kind of danger does carbon monoxide present? Why do you think Six Companies disregarded the state law? What other hazards do you think the men working on the jumbos might have faced?

How large is 1 cubic yard? Measure your classroom and figure out how many cubic yards it could hold. How many of your classrooms would it take to hold 1. What do you think is going on in this image? Where is the river? Look at Illustration 1. Does that help you figure out where the river went? How many steam shovels can you count? Based on the size of the people in the image, how big do you think these shovels were? The shovels had to remove about feet of soil and loose rock before they could get down to solid rock.

Why do you think it was so important to do that before starting work on the dam structure itself? By , the date of this photo, Six Companies had built a lookout on the top of the canyon for tourists coming to the site.

Why do you think visitors would drive so far to watch the dam under construction? Why do you think the construction company was willing to spend the money to build the lookout? By studying "The Greatest Dam in the World": Building Hoover Dam, students have learned why Hoover Dam was a triumph for the engineers of the Bureau of Reclamation, for the construction company that built it, and for the thousands of men who worked to complete it.

For many Americans, Hoover Dam also came to be a powerful symbol of what American industry and American workers could accomplish, even in the depths of the Great Depression. The following activities will help students build on what they have learned. Have students list as many kinds of work as they can based on the readings and the images.

Ask them to consider all kinds of jobs. You couldn't build the dam without men to pour concrete. Could you build it without men to drive trucks or feed the workers? The Hoover dam website has a list of additional jobs. Then divide the class into small groups. Ask each group to select a job and do some research on it. Then ask them to imagine what it might have been like to have that job at Hoover Dam. What would have been the plusses? What would have been the minuses? Ask each group to make a short presentation to the class and then have the other students vote on what job would have been the hardest and why.

Which job would have been the most dangerous? Which job would be most important? Finally, ask them to consider which job they themselves would like best. The discussion took a turn when we reminded ourselves that these wonders belonged to the ancient world.

Right off we decided to prepare a list of seven wonders of the United States. Our choices were based on those which were obvious, from the list of the ancient world wonders, massive, man-made, and enduring. The order is purely arbitrary. Divide the class into seven small groups. Ask the first group to identify and describe the original "Seven Wonders of the World. Ask each group to report back to the class. In a whole class discussion, compare and contrast the ancient and modern wonders.

Then ask the students to come up with their own list of "Wonders of the United States. Ask the students to identify as many places as they can that have those characteristics. Which of those would they select as their "Seven Wonders"? Would Hoover Dam be on their list? It prevents disastrous floods. It stabilizes the flow of water in the river, improving boat navigation.

It supplies water to irrigation projects in California and Arizona. The availability of water stored behind Hoover Dam and the power produced by that water played a critical role in the growth of the American Southwest in the midth century, but the demand for more water and electricity soon outstripped what this one dam could provide. Ask students to investigate how the places supplied by Hoover Dam have grown since They should be able to get population data for the states and cities listed above.

How do these dates relate to the growth statistics the students have collected? Then ask the students to gather information on changes in the volume of water flowing down Colorado River during that period. How does that compare with the That estimate has turned out to be too high, because the early 20th century was unusually wet while the period since then has been much drier.

Then ask students to research the amount of water that the Colorado River Compact allocated to each state in the Lower Basin.

Have students compare the data on the demand for water with the data on the available supply and then hold a whole class discussion brainstorming what problems might arise if the trends the students have identified continue. Finally, ask the students to consider what effect building a new dam might have on these problems.

What benefits would a new dam provide? What difficulties might those building it encounter? Ask them to compare and contrast these difficulties with the ones the builders of Hoover Dam faced. Do students think it would be necessary for the federal government to be involved to plan and complete such a new dam?

According to Webster's Dictionary, "public works" are construction projects, such as water treatment plants, power plants, flood control systems, and highways and transportation networks that are built by the government for the public.

They are critical to the functioning of modern communities, but few people notice them unless something goes wrong. Divide students into small groups and ask them to investigate examples of public works in their own community. They may be surprised at how old and how impressive some of these structures are. Private businesses may have built some of the dams, power plants, or other such facilities, but they do not fit the definition of "public works" given here.

Ask the students to compare the private projects with the ones that were the result of government programs and to define for themselves the differences between public and private "works. What might be the advantages of each type of ownership? Are there some kinds of works that only government can build?

Some of the public works in the community may be historic; students might want to consider nominating them to national or state registers of historic places or including them in walking or driving tours or in on-line travel itineraries for presentation to the local chamber of commerce.

Others may be simply old. Expanding demand and deferred maintenance may have affected their ability to do their jobs or to do them safely. Getting money in local budgets to keep them updated or even maintained is often difficult.

If students identify a neglected public works project, they may want to consider creating a PowerPoint presentation to present to local government authorities to call attention to the problem. In this lesson, students have learned why and how Hoover Dam was constructed. Those interested in learning more will find much useful information on the internet. Hoover Dam is feet tall. That's almost feet taller than the Washington Monument in Washington, D. During peak periods of electrical demands, enough water runs through the generators to fill 15 average-size swimming pools 20, gallons each in one second.

There is enough concrete in Hoover Dam 4. The Hoover Dam is so thick and heavy, it doesn't even need to be curved! It's heavy enough to resist the weight and thrust of the water pushing behind it, but designers thought people would feel safer with a curved design.

Hoover Dam Choose another wonder. Hoover Dam 1.