WEBVTT - How the Hoover Dam Works, Part I 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:03.400 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:13.000 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:17.320 I'm Josh Clark, Who's Charles Chuck Bryant, And there's Jerry 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:20.319 Roland over there. And if you put all three of 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.520 us together you get a little something called Stuff you 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:33.560 Should Know. Oh, Man, Damn, Hoover Damn edition. Have you 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:37.880 ever been to Hoover Damn? I have been there twice show. 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:44.320 Yeah I went. Um, I went in Oh the great 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:48.800 Hoover Damn Tour of it was either or Man, it 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:53.840 may have been nine. Almost cussed right then? Yeah, I 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:57.480 heard that. I almost did that the other day to 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.400 getting to a movie crushy. Um. It may have been 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:03.200 eighty nine or ninety. It was when I went out 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:05.720 to visit my brother when he lived in l A. 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:08.520 And we met in Las Vegas, drove down to the 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:11.600 Hoover dam and then back to l A. The first 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:15.759 time you guys met, Yeah, it was great. Uh. And 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.440 then I went again in ninety six for sure, ninety 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:24.199 six and okay, I think both times I took the tour. Uh. 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.520 And it's have you ever been? It's really something else. Yeah, 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:30.480 for the first time you me and I went about 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:35.840 a year ago. Um, we drove from uh Scottsdale to 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:38.520 Vegas and stopped in Hoover Dam on the way and 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:41.920 it was great, as you do, it was very very cool. Well, 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.560 there's nothing, nothing, nothing nothing. Hoover Damn, Vegas is kind 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:48.160 of how it goes. Yeah, and you know, we'll get 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.520 to the water levels. But it's uh, it's startling from 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:54.720 when I was there what it looks like now. Yeah, 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.320 I can imagine like if you had gone any time 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:00.760 before about two thousand. From what I understand, it's like 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:05.560 a different, different place. But the damn still there and 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:07.920 it's still intact and doing really well. You got that 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:11.680 at least, right, it's just the ecological catastrophe that's kind 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:14.200 of looming that kind of is a downer. That's right. 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:17.440 And we should give a big shout out to Julia Layton, 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:21.639 who used to be one of the great great writers 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:23.839 for how Stuff Works dot com back when we were 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:29.359 uh still associated with that website. I think she might 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:33.640 still write for him occasionally. Really well, she's great and 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:38.960 now we are commissioning some articles from her, and boy, 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.120 she's good, Yes she is. So what's her nickname? Chuck 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:46.600 the lates Julia Layton. Late's no, because that sounds like 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:50.360 she's not tardy. Oh yeah, that's right. Um, let's just 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.440 call her Dr Layton. Okay, there you go. Although I 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:55.079 don't think she's a doctor, but she does have her 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:58.160 masters in writing, that's right, So way better than me. 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:01.680 She cranks out some good stuff, that's right. So thanks, Julia, 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.600 I'm glad you called that out, Chuck. Well done. So 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:10.520 let's go back, shall we to a time in the 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:14.400 the little the little area of the southwestern United States 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:20.160 where Arizona reaches out to hug Nevada, Nevada. Which way 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:22.320 are we supposed to say it? Well, we're supposed to 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.720 say Nevada, but we're not from there, so we'll say Nevada, 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:31.080 right like everybody else, right, Um. And where they almost meet, 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:35.080 there's a little gorge. There's a canyon. Well there's a 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.680 lot of canyons, but there's one in particular, and it's 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.000 called Boulder Canyon. And if you went to Boulder Canyon 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.680 today to find the Hoover Dam, you would be s 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.800 o l because while they're originally going to build the 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:50.080 Hoover Dam at Boulder Canyon, so much so that the 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:52.240 name of the project for the first decade or so 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:56.880 it was called the Boulder Boulder Dam just Bold Boulder once, 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:01.560 not two Boulders, the Boulder Dam project. Um, they actually 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:04.720 moved it a little further upstream to a much more 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:07.680 suitable site called Black Canyon. And if you go visit 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:10.400 the Hoover Dam today, that's where you're actually going. It's 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:15.760 Black Canyon where Nevada and Arizona almost meat, that's right. 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:22.080 And um, this idea was conceived, this concrete gravity arch 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:29.600 hydro electric dam, hydro electric almost almost high dough electric. 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:35.320 Excuse me. Uh, this was all conceived because well, for 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.760 three reasons plus a cherry on top. One is that 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:43.760 the Colorado River had a had a bad habit of 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.640 flooding and causing lots of devastation. Just a nasty boy, 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:51.679 so too to lasso that that beast. Uh. Number Two, 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:56.159 to create water in times of drought, as you know, 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.600 creating a big reservoir that would be like mead uh, 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:03.800 to create energy. I love things that kill all these birds, 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:08.760 you know, so many dead birds. Uh. And then finally 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:10.840 the little cherry on top. Those were the three big 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:12.520 reasons they did it. But the cherry on top. It 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:16.760 turns out has been like me tourism is huge. Yeah, 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:23.159 I think like Mead was the first nationally designated recreation area. Yeah. 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:25.840 It sounds almost Soviet, doesn't it. Like the government's like 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:30.240 this is where you recreate on this particular designated lake. 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:35.880 Travel to the fund zone. So um yeah, the first one. 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:39.880 I think there's like this. This is the nineteen twenties, 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.440 I think when the project is really starting to gain 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.400 steam and the guy who was this Secretary of Commerce 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:49.320 at the time, who Herbert Hoover, who would very soon 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:51.760 be the President of the United States, who would very 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:54.600 shortly after that be like the most hated man in America. 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:57.680 Hoover was like, this is a great idea. There's like 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:02.320 this whole spot of land down in the Lower United States, 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.520 and it just wants to be so much more than 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:08.000 it than it is. It wants to be cropland, it 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.760 wants to be cattle pasture. It wants to be a 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:13.839 big old city like l A or Vegas. They're just 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:17.039 waiting to pop, but they really are having trouble with 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.120 water and with flooding. Like it's it's weird. It's like 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:23.000 the Colorado River would be like not enough, sorry, and 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:25.919 then up too much, way more than you ever wanted. 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:28.960 And because of this kind of mercurial nature of it, 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:31.799 there was just not a lot that could be done 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.680 with the Southwest unless you figured out a way to 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.559 tame that that river. And you know, like you were saying, 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:41.120 that's what the Hoover dam was originally intended to do, 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:43.800 and that's definitely what it did. I mean, just to 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:46.920 kind of let the cat out of the bag early. Um, 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:50.600 it was successful as far as damn projects go. Yeah, 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:53.040 And just to clear something up when you just said 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:56.600 Herbert Hoover said big cities like l A and Vegas, 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:02.200 he had a crystal ball on Vegas because Vegas was 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:07.640 cowtown back then. Yeah, population five thousand at around ninety. Yeah, 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:10.720 Vegas didn't people didn't want to go there until gambling 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:14.320 started happening. They did have gambling. They had gambling, they 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:18.160 had prostitution, they had yes, they had drinking. I guess 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:23.800 casinos thanks to h what's his name, Buggsy. Yeah, Bugsy 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:25.800 was one of the first, wouldn't he. I think so 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.880 he wasn't the first, was he? I mean I saw 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.120 that movie and if I remember correctly, Warren Beatty built 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:36.400 that Flamingo casino and hotel, and that was kind of 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:40.840 the first major casino. If I'm not mistaken, that sounds 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.280 like a guy who deserves his own episode of stuff. 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.800 You should know who Bugsy or or Warren Beatty. But 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:51.160 Bugsy okay, Warren Beatty maybe gets the short stuff. So, 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:56.320 uh the cup man, what a cut burn. It's better 0:07:56.360 --> 0:08:00.600 than just ignoring his existence and something's uh. So the 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.360 Colorado River, like we said, um, it's the seventh longest 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:08.760 in the US, about close to fift miles of total flow, 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:14.720 and I believe that it distributes water that the river 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:20.320 itself and then its tributaries to about million people. Of 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:24.520 the crops in the US and of the livestock drink 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:29.200 its water in the United States. It does now. So 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.480 before this, before the Hoover Dam project, when the Colorado 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:35.320 just did whatever the Colorado wanted to do. It's not 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:39.079 like the people of the Southwest had had not tried 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:44.160 to tame it before. They had extensive irrigation canals and 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:48.000 ditches and dikes and earthworks and everything they could think 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:50.920 of to keep the river going this way or that 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.840 way and to keep it from flooding, and none of 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:55.800 it worked. I mean it would work some like yes, 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.040 an irrigation canal would work and you could here get 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.360 your crops. But eventually the river was gonna flood and 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.320 because you had diverted the river towards your crop land, 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:07.760 when it flooded, it flooded that irrigation ditch, and it 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:10.480 flooded your crop land to which was a real problem 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:14.360 for you because it would when eventually it would recede um, 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:16.600 you might have a lot more dirt than you're used to, 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:19.760 probably pretty fertile dirt, but your crops would be gone. 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:22.480 Maybe some of your cows got carried away, you might 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.000 have lost your ten gallon hat. It's not a good 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:27.800 deal when your crop land gets flooded. And so this 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:29.960 was kind of what was going on when they were 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:32.680 trying to tame the Colorado. It was just way too 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:35.720 big of a project for you know, a handful of 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:40.160 even large scale farmers to take on, which was one 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.240 reason why the federal government stepped in because at the 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.280 time there was really no entity that could take on 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.880 a project like this, And even then there were a 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:51.559 lot of questions like I'm not even sure the U. S. 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:55.400 Government can handle this kind of thing. And the government said, oh, well, watch, 0:09:55.640 --> 0:10:01.720 watch and learn suckers. Yeah. So it's when uh US 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.760 Bureau of Reclamation said, all right, I think we can 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:08.160 build a dam of all dams. Um, we're gonna make 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.000 it a gravity arch design. I think that can handle 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:15.040 the Colorado River. And we're gonna have tunnels and turbines 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:19.280 and towers, and we're gonna prevent flooding, and we're gonna 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:22.319 deliver water to people. And the best news is we're 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.920 going to create well, all that's great news, but more 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:28.720 great news is we're going to create energy for a 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:31.400 ton of people, such that this thing will even pay 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:35.640 for itself in fifty years time. And like you said, 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.199 a lot of people, I mean, this was and a 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.720 lot of people are like, I don't Even engineers were saying, 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:45.120 I don't know if this is possible, right, And so 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.640 not only were people incredulous that it was even possible, 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:53.240 there's some seven states that draw water from the Colorado River, 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:55.959 which is a pretty long river. It goes it starts 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:59.080 in the Rocky Mountains, that's where it's fed by snow 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:01.560 melt up there, and then it goes all the way 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:05.120 down to Mexico and so seven states lay claim on water. 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.240 They need water from the Colorado River to live, to 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:12.080 irriget their crops, to feed their livestock. It's the kind 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.120 of like the main artery for life in in the Southwest, 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:18.520 or one of them. And when they found out that 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.040 people in the seven States found out the US government 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.240 was was wanting to damn and control the river, they 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.600 got really worried that really this was just a project 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:31.400 to divert all that beautiful water over to California. Because 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.720 California had it going on by the late twenties, you know, 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.800 the early mid twenties already thanks to Los Angeles, thanks 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:41.400 to well, thanks to Los Angeles, UM. But it had 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:43.439 a lot of potential, and it was growing San Francisco 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:47.280 to it was it. It was growing in between those two, 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.640 those two cities. And so the people in like New 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:54.320 Mexico and Colorado and Arizona and Nevada were really worried 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:56.880 that this was really just the federal government stepping in 0:11:56.960 --> 0:11:59.200 and saying, thanks a lot, we're gonna take this water 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.839 and send it off to California, and um. Herbert Hoover 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.520 actually intervened and said no, no no, no, how about this. 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:08.640 Before we even get this project underway, we will broker 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:12.319 a deal for how the water from the Colorado River 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.880 gets distributed. And I'm Herbert Hoover. I'm going to be 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:17.640 the most hated man in the world. So I'm going 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:22.679 to actually purposely inflate the the capacity that this reservoir 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.520 will hold so that no one feels like they're they're 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.560 going to get left out. And everybody ended up signing on. 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:32.240 So that was technically step negative one or maybe step 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:38.000 zero before the plan was even fully adopted by the government. Yeah, 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:42.200 and it was called the Colorado River Compact. And again 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.360 it was just to make I think the only ones 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.160 you left out were Utah and Wyoming and then the 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:52.439 other five. Um. And they said, all right, the way 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.320 you a portion, it looks good to us. California is like, 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:57.040 we all know that we're really going to get the 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:59.920 most water, right, and it was like, totally don't worry about. 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.800 Everyone's gonna hate me soon and many people will hate 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:07.199 California one day too. Um. And so Congress said, this 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:10.679 looks great, let's push forward. Uh, despite the fact, I 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:13.040 don't think we mentioned yet that the private sector. Of course, 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:15.240 I mean, if you think the private sector and the 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:18.360 government have been it's like a newish thing that they're 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:22.240 arguing over stuff like this. Think again, because since the 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.839 dawn of time in the United States, the government and 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:30.480 the private sector have squabbled, and so obviously private power 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:34.560 companies and and water companies and just everybody was like, geez, 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:36.680 I don't like the sounds of this, like the government's 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:41.679 gonna start getting into the electricity business. Um. But regardless, 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:45.400 they had no choice. Congress approved the Boulder Dam project, 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.440 like you said, that later moved to Black Canyon, and 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:52.880 for many, many years it was kind of bounced back 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:57.720 and forth between Boulder Dam and then Hoover Dam. Uh. 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:00.600 They officially called it Hoover Dam in nineteen thirty one, 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:05.319 but like you said, four times, Hoover people didn't like 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:07.600 him when he left office, so they went, let's call 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.679 it the Boulder Dam again. And then it took a 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:14.600 congressional resolution in nineteen seven to finally bring it back 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:18.640 and give Hoover his due right. The reason why people 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:21.920 hated Hoover, especially right after he left office, like he 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.400 was a super conservative president. He believed that the federal 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:29.120 government should intervene in business and in personal affairs as 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:33.280 little as possible. So in the grips the worst parts 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:36.880 of the Great Depression, the greatest economic recession that's ever 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:41.600 hit the world, he was literally vetoing bills that would 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:46.000 give federal assistance to Americans. So he was very much 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:48.760 hated and reviled by the average person and just about 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.720 everybody when he when he was soundly defeated by FDR, 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:59.920 I think in nineteen thirty two. That sounded so uneasy 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:08.040 in nineteen thirty ish to election. So obviously, if you're 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:11.680 gonna undertake a project in award contracts to two companies 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:14.400 to build this thing, there's probably not one company that 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:17.640 can tackle something like this that has all the different 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.160 UH skills necessary to build something like the Hoover Dam. 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:26.200 So UH six actually companies, six big big construction firms 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:30.560 got together and UH formed what was called, wait for it, 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:35.720 the six Companies right in nineteen thirty one, and they 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:40.320 served as the kind of UH mega construction firm that 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:45.200 undertook this huge, huge project. Yeah, they bid the project 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:49.640 out at like forty eight point eight million dollars um, 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:52.080 which is so funny to think about now, Like it's 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:54.600 a little money for something like this. Yeah, even when 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.880 you adjust for inflation, it's still a surprisingly low amount. 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:00.360 It comes out to about eight hundred million dollars. And 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:02.960 it's like the federal government today spends billion dollars like 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:06.400 it's nothing. This is like a huge deal that the 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:09.640 federal government government was spending the equivalent of today's eight 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.880 hundred million dollars. But one reason why they went with 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:16.560 the six companies consortium is because the Bureau of Reclamation 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.760 this is the department that oversaw the project. Um, they 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:25.760 had calculated the costs themselves, and the six companies bid 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:29.120 was only about twenty four thousand dollars more than the 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.680 six company or than the Bureau of Reclamation had estimated 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:38.000 the project would cost about twenty four grand over right, 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.040 So they were like, all right, if you want to 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:44.720 build this whole project for dollars have added UM. And 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:48.480 I mean obviously they were six legitimate major construction companies 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.360 and then all of them combined together form one super 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:54.840 construction company. UM. So they seem to be pretty comfortable 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:58.080 with this consortium. And from everything I can tell, unless 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:02.120 you're a workers rights kind of person, um, this this company. 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:05.000 Their faith in this consortium was well placed because they 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:11.600 did a pretty good job, saving maybe one major mistake, um, 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.200 which we'll get too later. It was it's a pretty 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:18.480 good government construction project if you ask me, public private, 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:21.560 all right, UM, I feel like we should take a 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:26.080 break now and come back and talk about, uh, infrastructure 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:41.919 right for this. All right, So we're back and uh 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:43.680 it will take a couple of years. Obviously, you're not 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:46.399 going to dive into a project like this right away 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:50.000 because you can't back then because of where it was located. 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:55.199 And if you think about it, um, like part of 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:57.960 the problem with this project from the beginning was its 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:02.479 location and how isolated the Southwest was from other like 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:05.000 major parts of the U S at the time. And 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:07.080 so they were like, wait a minute, we're not close 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.720 to anything Like Vegas only is the closest place and 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:13.520 it has five thousand people. That doesn't really help us much. 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:17.320 It's like, you know, miles away. So here's what we're 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:19.680 gonna have to do. Um, we're gonna have to build 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:23.960 a town that's really close by for all of our 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.240 employees and our workers to live. And so they did 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:32.320 just that. I think this was about six miles away. 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:37.680 They literally constructed a city called Boulder, city, UM west 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:41.640 of the damn site. It had seven fifty eight cottages 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.600 if you were married and worked or had a family 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:48.239 or whatever. It had nine dormitories for single men. I 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:52.400 imagine that was a wild scene. Uh. They had a hospital, 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:55.520 they had a department store, they had laundry, they had 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.120 a school, they had a post office, they had uh 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.800 liquor stills and and that's real illegal by the way. 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:06.359 Sure of course this depression or prohibition, UM, but they 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:10.720 needed their booze, like, let's be honest. Uh. And this 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:14.320 this city actually remained under government control until nineteen fifty nine, 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:18.320 when uh it got its own incorporation, which is kind 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:22.800 of crazy. Yeah, the the the Hoover Damn was dedicated, 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:28.320 like the project was done basically UM by nineteen thirty eight, Um, 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:31.159 nineteen thirty nine. I think they're still working on outbuildings 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:33.720 and stuff for a little while. But for twenty years 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:37.240 after a lot of the people who had UM built 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.080 the damn were like, I really like this Bowlder City town. 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:42.560 I'm gonna stay here. And one of the reasons why 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.679 you would stay there is because like the government ran 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:48.800 the town. There were no elected officials. There was an 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:55.359 appointed Bureau of Reclamation, um department, uh like administrator that 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:57.720 was like the de facto mayor of the town. And 0:19:57.800 --> 0:19:59.840 like if there was something wrong with your house, You're 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:03.800 of Reclamation workers would come fix it, like your sink 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:06.960 or paint your house or whatever. You didn't have to 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:10.000 do anything because the government this is like federal land. 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:14.240 And finally in nineteen what'd you say, the government was like, 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.840 all right, freeloaders, you can paint your own houses from 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.399 now on. This is your place. And they incorporated it 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.040 into a city in nineteen sixty, I guess, yeah, And 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.040 it's uh still one of two cities in Nevada that 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:29.520 say no gambling here, which is pretty unique. You know. 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:31.639 At the at the height of this project to Chuck 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.720 Bowlder City, which hadn't existed just a couple of years before. 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:36.840 Like it wasn't like they took over an existing city 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.359 and built it up. There was nothing there before and 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.240 they built a city from scratch. Um it was. It 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:45.600 had the biggest population in Nevada at the time. Yeah, 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:48.879 more than Vegas. Yeah, by by a few hundred people, 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:51.919 I believe. All right, so they built I mean this 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:54.080 is keep in mind again, this before they can even 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:56.880 get started on this dam. They say, we gotta build 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:01.040 a city. We gotta build um seven miles of highway, 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.480 we gotta build twenty three miles of railway, we got 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:08.200 to build um bring in like two miles of power lines, 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:12.640 and we have to bring in cableways spanning this canyon. 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:16.840 And it's just all this massive amounts of infrastructure to 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:20.520 tackle this project where they were gonna be paying dudes 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:25.159 fifty cents to a dollar an hour, which is between 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.840 eight bucks and twenty bucks an hour in today dollars. Right, 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:34.240 what's ironic is the harder and the more dangerous your 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:38.359 job typically the less you were paid, kind of like 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:42.760 today kind of. Yeah, there was there is a group 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:45.360 called the muckers, and they were the ones who had 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.240 to like get the stone in the sludge and all 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:51.760 that stuff out of the canyon bottom. And um, they 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:54.480 got paid the least even though they were the most 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:58.720 um exposed to like falling rocks and falling items, and 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:03.280 apparently like falling stuff was a real danger on this project. Yeah, 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:05.600 well we'll get to that later, but a lot of 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:09.920 noggins suffered. Um, So then the other thing that they 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:12.040 had to do, they're like all right, we got the 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:14.320 city built, we got all these highways, We've got all 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:16.399 this stuff, We've got all these people. We got a 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:19.520 good plan. They're like, we need to do something with 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:22.840 this river because you can't. You can't just start stacking 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:27.440 rocks and divert the Colorado River. So they literally had 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:30.919 to come up with a plan to reroute the Colorado 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:34.520 River while they built this thing. I hadn't thought about that. 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:36.960 I'm sure you knew about it two times over from 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:41.359 your double visits and the tour. Now, did you just 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:44.480 drive across it? No, we walked around. We didn't take 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:47.320 one of these sexual like tours, tours like it was 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:51.200 seventeen bucks, right, Like, I'm sure I know as much 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:54.520 as this guy. Um, but no, No, I mean like 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:56.000 we took out the whole thing and we were there 0:22:56.000 --> 0:22:57.639 for a couple of hours or anything. But it was 0:22:57.640 --> 0:22:59.359 self guided to her, How about that got you? No, 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:01.359 that's great, but it had never occurred to me. And 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:03.439 I didn't learn on this self guided tour that we 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:06.600 just made up ourselves. Um, that that that you would 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:08.600 have to divert the river, that the river was still 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:13.960 going through um Black Canyon at the time. Um, and 0:23:14.200 --> 0:23:16.720 you just couldn't build a damn there while the river 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:19.159 was trying to get through there. There's a lot of 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:23.080 stuff you could do so to to divert the river. Um, 0:23:23.200 --> 0:23:25.879 they did some really ingenious stuff. And if you step 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:28.760 back and look at it from like the eyes of 0:23:28.800 --> 0:23:32.400 a like like a child, it's really just too three 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:36.280 four steps and building this damn if you really look 0:23:36.320 --> 0:23:39.480 at a super high level or super I guess childlike again, 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:43.359 um in all of them make total sense. But just 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:46.520 the audacity of saying, yeah, we can do that, Yeah, 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:49.720 add that extra step on before we get started. It's 0:23:49.800 --> 0:23:51.920 it really kind of goes to the heart of like, 0:23:52.000 --> 0:23:56.200 just what an amazing civil engineering project this was. So 0:23:56.800 --> 0:23:58.800 like with any damn, if you want to divert that water, 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:01.600