This Week in History
September 29 - October 5, 1935
In light of the urgent need for vast new water and power infrastructure projects in the United States, especially California and the Southwest, it is appropriate today that we look back to September 30, 1935, when the Hoover Dam (then called the Boulder Dam) was opened in a grand ceremony, addressed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was this project which harnessed the Colorado River, and generated the abundant electricity, and supply of fresh water, which "made the desert bloom" in Southern California's Imperial Valley, for decades to come.
This Colorado River dam project was begun under President Herbert Hoover, with the perspective that it could pay for itself eventually, through the sale of electricity from the vast power generators which would be attached to the dam itself. This was a similar concept to that which was eventually put into effect in the TVA project. The control was in the hands of the Federal government, through the Bureau of Reclamation, although most of the work in construction was farmed out to private companies. The first spike was pounded into the rock on September 17, 1930.
Over the next five years, construction proceeded at breakneck speed, with a consortium of six companies running the operation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The average number of employees over the entire period was 2500 men, but the spinoff effect in terms of employment and economic growth was enormous, when you consider the fact that a whole new town was built for the workers (Boulder City), and that feeder industries had to gear up enormously to produce the concrete, steel, and other component parts of the diversion tunnels, huge dam, and power plants.
There was nothing idyllic about the working conditions in this pitiless desert area, where temperatures could rise to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The speed of construction appears to have been related to the drive by the contractors to receive a "bonus" for early completion and the loss of 112 workers in construction-related accidents.
But the project itself deserves its designation as the Eighth Wonder of the World, or the Seventh Engineering Wonder, in terms of the grandeur of conception, and successful execution of a project that came to provide cheap, reliable power and water for the citizens of the seven state region (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming), and dramatically improve the productivity of the agriculture of Southern California through providing reliable irrigation.
But we will let President Roosevelt, who addressed 20,000 people at the inauguration of the dam, provide the rather specific account of what the dam accomplished for the people of the United States. Implicitly, you hear him refute those today who argue that such infrastructure projects are "unnecessary," "too expensive," or "bad for the environment." You need only keep in mind that today, 68 years later, we are long overdue in devising newer, and grander, projects to meet our expanded needs, and build a dramatically better future.
"...We are here to celebrate the completion of the greatest dam in the world, rising 726 feet above the bedrock of the river and altering the geography of a whole region; we are here to see the creation of the largest artificial lake in the world115 miles long, holding enough water, for example, to cover the state of Connecticut to a depth of ten feet; and we are here to see nearing completion a powerhouse which will contain the largest generators and turbines yet installed in this country, machinery that can continuously supply nearly two million horsepower of electric energy.
"All these dimensions are superlative. They represent and embody the accumulated engineering knowledge and experience of centuries; and when we behold them it is fitting that we pay tribute to the genius of their designers. We recognize also the energy, resourcefulness, and zeal of the builders, who, under the greatest physical obstacles, have pushed this work forward to completion two years in advance of the contract requirements. But especially, we express our gratitude to the thousands of workers who gave brain and brawn to this great work of construction.
"Beautiful and great as this structure is, it must also be considered in its relationship to the agricultural and industrial development and in its contribution to the health and comfort of the people of America who live in the Southwest.
"To divert and distribute the waters of an arid region, so that there shall be security of rights and efficiency in service, is one of the greatest problems of law and of administration to be found in any government. The farms, the cities, the people who live along the many thousands of miles of this river and its tributariesall of them depend upon the conservation, the regulation, and the equitable division of its ever-changing water supply. What has been accomplished on the Colorado in working out such a scheme of distribution is inspiring to the whole country. Through the cooperation of the states whose people depend upon this river, and of the federal government which is concerned in the general welfare, there is being constructed a system of distributive works and of laws and practices which will insure to the millions of people who now dwell in this basin, and the millions of others who will come to dwell here in future generations, a just, safe, and permanent system of water rights. In devising these policies and the means for putting them into practice, the Bureau of Reclamation of the federal government has taken, and is destined to take in the future, a leading and helpful part....
"We know that, as an unregulated river, the Colorado added little of value to the region this dam serves. When in flood, the river was a threatening torrent. In the dry months of the year it shrank to a trickling stream. For a generation the people of Imperial Valley had lived in the shadow of disaster from this river which provided their livelihood, and which is the foundation of their hopes for themselves and their children. Every spring they awaited with dread the coming of a flood, and at the end of nearly every summer they feared a shortage of water would destroy their crops.
"The gates of these great diversion tunnels were closed here at Boulder Dam last February. In June a great flood came down the river. It came roaring down the canyons of the Colorado, through Grand Canyon, Iceberg and Boulder Canyons, but it was caught and safely held behind Boulder Dam.
"Last year a drought of unprecedented severity was visited upon the West. The watershed of this Colorado River did not escape. In July the canals of the Imperial Valley went dry. Crop losses in that valley alone totalled $10 million that summer. Had Boulder Dam been completed one year earlier, this loss would have been prevented, because the spring flood would have been stored to furnish a steady water supply for the long dry summer and fall.
Across the San Jacinto Mountains southwest of Boulder Dam, the cities of Southern California are constructing an aqueduct to cost $220 million, which they have raised, for the purpose of carrying the regulated waters of the Colorado River to the Pacific Coast, 259 miles away.
"Across the desert and mountains to the west and south run great electric transmission lines by which factory motors, street and household lights, and irrigation pumps will be operated in southern Arizona and California. Part of this power will be used in pumping the water through the aqueduct to supplement the domestic supplies of Los Angeles and surrounding cities.
"Navigation of the river from Boulder Dam to the Grand Canyon has been made possible, a 115-mile stretch that has been traversed less than half a dozen times in history. An immense new park has been created for the enjoyment of all our people.
"At what cost was this done? Boulder Dam and the powerhouses together cost a total of $108 million, all of which will be repaid with interest in fifty years under the contracts for sale of the power. Under these contracts, already completed, not only will the cost be repaid, but the way is opened for the provision of needed light and power to the consumer at reduced rates. In the expenditure of the price of Boulder Dam during the depression years, work was provided for four thousand men, most of them heads of families, and many thousands more were enabled to earn a livelihood through manufacture of materials and machinery.
"And this picture is true on different scales in regard to the thousands of projects undertaken by the federal government, by the states, and by the counties and municipalities in recent years. The overwhelming majority of them are of definite and permanent usefulness.
"Throughout our national history we have had a great program of public improvements, and in these past two years all that we have done has been to accelerate that program. We know, too, that the reason for this speeding up was the need of giving relief to several million men and women whose earning capacity had been destroyed by the complexities and lack of thought of the economic system of the past generation....
"In a little over two years this great national work has accomplished much. We have helped mankind by the works themselves and, at the same time, we have created the necessary purchasing power to throw in the clutch to start the wheels of what we call private industry. Such expenditures on all of these works, great and small, flow out to many beneficiaries; they revive other and more remote industries and businesses. Money is put in circulation. Credit is expanded and the financial and industrial mechanism of America is stimulated to more and more activity. Labor makes wealth. The use of materials makes wealth. To employ workers and materials when private employment has failed is to translate into great national possessions the energy that otherwise would be wasted. Boulder Dam is a splendid symbol of that principle. The mighty waters of the Colorado were running unused to the sea. Today we translate them into a great national possession...."
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