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On this day in history, July 7, 1930, construction of the Hoover Dam began.
Over the next five years, more than 21,000 men would work tirelessly to produce what History.com said would become the largest dam of its time and one of the largest man-made structures in the world.
According to a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation report, 96 workers died during the construction of the dam from 1931 to 1936.
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Also, over 100 additional dam workers died while off work; those causes include pneumonia, meningitis and typhoid fever, the same source noted.
The dam is located about 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas, where the Colorado River forms the border between Nevada and Colorado.
The 3.25-million-cubic-foot dam, which spans more than 220 acres, is made of small concrete squares about 8 cubic feet, according to a Las Vegas Review-Journal article.
The Hoover Dam water intake towers over Lake Mead, the nation’s largest man-made water reservoir formed by the dam on the Colorado River in the southwestern U.S., as seen in July 2022 near Boulder City, Nevada. A National Recreation Area, located in the states of Nevada and Arizona 24 miles east of the Las Vegas Strip, the lake supplies water to the states of Arizona, California, Utah, Colorado, and Nevada, as well as parts of Mexico. (George Roos/Getty Images)
The Hoover Dam is named after President Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States.
“When construction of the dam began, Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur ordered the dam to be built in the Black Canyon of the Colorado (river) as part of the Boulder Canyon Project Act… to be named Hoover Dam said the US Bureau of Reclamation.
Although the dam was only supposed to take five years to build, it took nearly 30 years to build.
By a Congressional Act. February 14, 1931, this name was made official, the same site indicated.
Although construction of the dam was only supposed to take five years, according to multiple sources it took nearly 30 years to work on the construction.
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Arthur Powell Davis, a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation engineer, originally had a vision for the Hoover Dam in 1902. .com.
President Hoover, a committed conservationist, played a vital role in realizing Davis’s vision; while President Hoover was Secretary of Commerce in 1921, he devoted himself to building a high dam in Boulder Canyon, the same source said.
The Hoover Dam is one of the National Park Service’s most popular tourist attractions. (Ashley Soriano/Fox News)
In 1929, Hoover, now president, signed the Colorado River Compact into law, claiming it was “the most comprehensive action ever taken by a group of states under the provisions of the Constitution authorizing treaties between states,” noted History.com on.
Hoover Dam was created to provide hydroelectric power and water for irrigation to the residents of Southern Nevada, Northern Arizona and Southern California, including Los Angeles.
Today, it does this for almost literally millions of people, according to Travel Nevada.
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Despite President Hoover’s support and support for the need to build the dam, congressional approval and cooperation between individual states got off to a slow start, according to History.com.
After preparations were made, Hoover Dam construction “sprinted forward”.
Water rights were a source of contention among the western states that had claims to the Colorado River. To meet this challenge, President Hoover negotiated the Colorado River Compact, which broke the watershed into two regions with the water divided between them, according to the same source.
A watercraft vehicle drives past a sign welcoming visitors to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area on July 1, 2022 in Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada. The water level at Lake Mead was the lowest since it was filled in 1937 after the construction of the Hoover Dam. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
“Hoover then had to introduce and resubmit the bill to build the dam several times over the next few years before the House and Senate finally passed the bill in 1928,” according to History.com.
Once preparations were made, construction on the Hoover Dam “sprinted ahead”: The contractors completed work two years ahead of schedule and millions of dollars under budget, the same source noted.
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Hoover Dam is the size of a 60-story building; it was the tallest dam in the world when it was completed in 1935, the National Park Service indicated.
“It is still the largest artificial lake in the United States. The amount of water in the lake, when full, could cover the entire state of Connecticut 10 feet deep. Only a massive dam could withstand the pressure of so much water, said the same source.
The Hoover Dam symbolized what American industry and American workers could do, even in the depths of the Great Depression.
For millions of people in the 1930s, including those who would never visit, Hoover Dam became a symbol of what American industry and American workers could do even in the depths of the Great Depression, the National Park Service noted.
In 1929, the stock market crashed, sending America into a maelstrom of despair and poverty. That led to the Great Depression, which left one in four workers unemployed, regardless of whether they were skilled or not, Bartelby.com reported.
In addition to Hoover Dam, there were major construction projects from coast to coast in the 1930s.
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The Triborough Bridge (the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge), the Lincoln Tunnel, and La Guardia Airport all transformed New York City’s transportation network — and the Big Apple’s Empire State Building reigned as the world’s tallest building from 1931 to 1973.
On the west coast, the Golden Gate Bridge was also built in San Francisco in the same decade.
“The Golden Gate Bridge was one of the spectacular construction projects of the 1930s that enabled the nation’s economic recovery,” according to the Smithsonian.
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More recently, construction began in January 2005 on a long-planned Hoover Dam Bypass Project. And in October 2010, a 1,000-foot span concrete arch bridge — the longest in North America for that type of bridge — opened to through traffic within sight of Hoover Dam, Britannica.com reported.
The old road along the top is reserved for visitors to the dam, the same source says.
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The Hoover Dam is a National Historic Landmark.
It has been rated by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of America’s Seven Modern Civil Engineering Wonders, according to the US Bureau of Reclamation.
Erica Lamberg is a contributing reporter for Fox News Digital.
