The Hoover Dam

As with all my weekly escapades, I begin this one with a web search.

The Hoover Dam is a dam built in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River on the border of Arizona and Nevada. The dam was constructed between 1931 and 1936, having been dedicated on September 30, 1935 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It helps control floods, provide irrigation water and generate hydroelectric power.

From the Wikimedia Commons

The Hoover Dam was constructed during the Great Depression. While it was originally referred to as the “Boulder Dam” or “Boulder Canyon Dam” (despite the fact that the construction site was moved to Black Canyon), U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur under President Herbert Hoover called it the “Hoover Dam” while speaking at a ceremony on September 17, 1930. Controversy followed, with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his Secretary of the Interior Harold LeClair Ickes trying to revert the name to “Boulder Dam”. The controversy was finally settled in 1947 when a bill passed unanimously by both Houses of Congress restored the name to “Hoover Dam”.

Photo Credit: L. Richard Martin, Jr. Retouched.

Bing Maps pulled up satellite and “Bird’s Eye” views of the Hoover Dam. Google Maps provided a “Street View” based on photographs shared by people on the Internet.

Flickr and Fotopedia served up slideshows with beautiful professional and semi-professional photographs of the Hoover Dam (Fotopedia’s collection seemed much more refined).

The best source I found for information on the Hoover Dam was Wikipedia, though the U.S. Department of the Interior also has a website with historical and visit-related information for the dam.

The Hoover Dam is a marvel of American ingenuity, standing tall and strong as another example of what the greatest minds and hardest workers can accomplish even in times of desperation.