Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam, 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas, is the largest dam in the western hemisphere. In 1955 it was designated as one of the seven engineering wonders in the US by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It is a national historic landmark. It is named for the 31st President, Herbert Hoover. On September 20, 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated Boulder Dam, now called Hoover Dam:

"Ten years ago the place where we are now gathered was an unpeopled, forbidding desert. The site of Boulder City was a cactus-covered waste. The transformation wrought here is a twentieth century marvel."

The Act of Congress had named it Hoover Dam when construction began in 1930, but the original name, Boulder Dam, then in common use, was used. In 1947, President Harry Truman suggested the Hoover Dam name be restored, and the Congress agreed.

Built between 1931 and 1935 (completed two years ahead of schedule and under budget), it is 726.4 ft high, 1,244 ft across, and contains 3.25 million cubic yards of concrete (a one-lane highway from San Francisco to New York). Cost: $165 million. It weighs 6.6 million tons. Hoover Dam provides electricity and water to states throughout the southwestern US.

The new Hoover Dam bridge opened in October 2010. It is 1,960 ft long, 88 ft wide, and reaches 890 ft above the Colorado river. Its official name is Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge. The cost of the project was $240 million.