Hoover Dam has made frequent appearances in various forms of media on account of its size and national prominence within the United States. Prior to the dam's completion in 1936, the Boulder Dam construction project was likewise the subject of a number of films. [1]
Even before its construction, Hoover Dam had an effect on popular culture in the American west. Starting in the 1920s, politicians and newspapers in the Southwest called for the construction of a dam on the Colorado river. To rally public support for the project, conceptual sketches of the future dam were published, often accompanied with vivid descriptions of the wealth of resources the dam would provide; the project was often described with terms like "great", and was compared to other great engineering projects (such as the Pyramids of Giza and the Great Wall of China) with the Los Angeles Times describing the project as a "gateway of Empire." [2]
After construction of the dam began, imagery of the dam switched from conceptual to more documentary - the Bureau of Reclamation produced a large number of photographs documenting the building of the dam, publishing these in newspapers and magazines to ensure public and political support for the project continued. The immense size of the project (physically and in terms of workers employed to construct it) came to be seen as a symbol of American innovation and progress during the ongoing Great Depression, cementing the dam in the American popular consciousness. [2] Influential artists such as modernist Charles Sheeler, muralist William Gropper, illustrator Hugh Ferriss, and photographer Ansel Adams all produced works depicting the dam. [2]
Capitalizing on the dam's popularity, private businesses began to use images of the dam to advertise products, while the National Park Service hoped to use the newly formed Lake Mead to promote tourism in the area. [2] Hoover dam's likeness appears on many pieces of kitsch, and has been used in advertisements for Alcoa, Coca-Cola, Jim Beam, Pan Am, Pontiac, R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Sunoco, Studebaker, and Westinghouse; advertisements featuring the dam normally include the dam as either a symbol of engineering or as a landmark. [2]
Hoover Dam has also appeared in numerous films, tv series, and documentaries. Even prior to the dam's completion, the massive size of the construction project - coupled with its symbolic value - drew the attention of the American film industry, with several films featuring the Boulder dam project. Upon its completion, Hoover Dam was further iconized in film, with many works of media using the dam to convey a sense of scale in their productions. Others focused on the dam's reputation as a great work of engineering. Following the massive cultural and economic expansion of Las Vegas, Hoover Dam became increasingly culturally tied to the city. [2]
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Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. Constructed between 1931 and 1936, during the Great Depression, it was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over 100 lives. In bills passed by Congress during its construction, it was referred to as the Hoover Dam, after President Herbert Hoover, but was named the Boulder Dam by the Roosevelt administration. In 1947, the name Hoover Dam was restored by Congress.
Boulder City is a city in Clark County, Nevada, United States. It is approximately 26 miles (42 km) southeast of Las Vegas. As of the 2020 census, the population of Boulder City was 14,885. The city took its name from Boulder Canyon. Boulder City is one of only two places in Nevada that prohibits gambling, the other being the town of Panaca.
Henderson is a city in Clark County, Nevada, United States, about 16 miles (26 km) southeast of downtown Las Vegas. It is the 2nd most populous city in Nevada, after Las Vegas, with an estimated population of 320,189 in 2019. The city is part of the Las Vegas Valley. Henderson occupies the southeastern end of the valley, at an elevation of 1,864 feet (568 m).
The Colorado River is one of the principal rivers in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The 1,450-mile-long (2,330 km) river, the 5th longest in the United States, drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states. The name Colorado derives from the Spanish language for "colored reddish" due to its heavy silt load. Starting in the central Rocky Mountains of Colorado, it flows generally southwest across the Colorado Plateau and through the Grand Canyon before reaching Lake Mead on the Arizona–Nevada border, where it turns south toward the international border. After entering Mexico, the Colorado approaches the mostly dry Colorado River Delta at the tip of the Gulf of California between Baja California and Sonora.
Six Companies, Inc. was a joint venture of construction companies that was formed to build the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in Nevada and Arizona.
Glen Canyon Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the southwestern United States, located on the Colorado River in northern Arizona, near the city of Page. The 710-foot-high (220 m) dam was built by the Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) from 1956 to 1966 and forms Lake Powell, one of the largest man-made reservoirs in the U.S. with a capacity of more than 25 million acre-feet (31 km3). The dam is named for Glen Canyon, a series of deep sandstone gorges now flooded by the reservoir; Lake Powell is named for John Wesley Powell, who in 1869 led the first expedition to traverse the Colorado River's Grand Canyon by boat.
Lake Mead is a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States. It is located in the states of Nevada and Arizona, 24 mi (39 km) east of Las Vegas. It is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of water capacity. Lake Mead provides water to the states of Arizona, California, and Nevada as well as some of Mexico, providing sustenance to nearly 20 million people and large areas of farmland.
The Bureau of Reclamation, formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and operation of the diversion, delivery, and storage projects that it has built throughout the western United States for irrigation, water supply, and attendant hydroelectric power generation. It is currently the U.S.'s largest wholesaler of water, bringing water to more than 31 million people, and providing one in five Western farmers with irrigation water for 10 million acres of farmland, which produce 60% of the nation's vegetables and 25% of its fruits and nuts. The Bureau is also the second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the western U.S.
The Las Vegas Valley is a major metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada, and the second largest in the Southwestern United States. The state's largest urban agglomeration, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Statistical Area is coextensive since 2003 with Clark County, Nevada. The Valley is largely defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a 600 sq mi (1,600 km2) basin area surrounded by mountains to the north, south, east and west of the metropolitan area. The Valley is home to the three largest incorporated cities in Nevada: Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas. Eleven unincorporated towns governed by the Clark County government are part of the Las Vegas Township and constitute the largest community in the state of Nevada.
St. Thomas, Nevada is a ghost town in Clark County, Nevada, United States, near where the Muddy River flows into the Colorado River. St. Thomas was purchased by the US Federal Government and abandoned as the waters of Lake Mead submerged the town in the 1930s.
Interstate 11 (I-11) is an Interstate Highway that currently runs for 51.5 miles (82.9 km) on a predominantly northwest–southeast alignment in the U.S. state of Nevada, running concurrently with either or both U.S. Route 93 (US 93) and U.S. Route 95 the Arizona state line and Henderson. The freeway is tentatively planned to run from Nogales, Arizona, to the vicinity of Reno, Nevada, generally following the current routes of I-19, I-10, US 93, and US 95. Planners anticipate upgrading two existing highway segments to carry future I-11: US 93 in Arizona from Wickenburg to the Nevada state line on the Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge over the Colorado River and US 95 in Nevada from the Las Vegas Valley to Tonopah. The most recent extension came in 2024, when officials began replacing I-515 signs in Las Vegas with I-11 signs and adding I-11 signs on US 95 north of Downtown Las Vegas, which extended I-11 northward about 30.5 miles (49.1 km). An extension of the Interstate northward along US 95 to Mercury, Nevada, is planned after that. An exact alignment for I-11 has yet to be determined outside of these sections; a number of corridor alternatives, however, have been identified for further study and refinement. The building of I-11 in Arizona is also facing local opposition from conservation groups.
Hoover Dam Lodge is a hotel and casino near Boulder City, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Richard Craig Estey. It was previously the Gold Strike until it was largely destroyed by an accidental fire on June 16, 1998. It reopened the next year as the Hacienda and then took on its current name in January 2015.
The Colorado River Compact is a 1922 agreement that regulates water distribution among seven states in the southwestern United States. The contract is about the area within the drainage basin of the Colorado River.
The Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge is an arch bridge in the United States that spans the Colorado River between the states of Arizona and Nevada. The bridge is located within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area approximately 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, and carries Interstate 11 and U.S. Route 93 over the Colorado River. Opened in 2010, it was the key component of the Hoover Dam Bypass project, which rerouted US 93 from its previous routing along the top of Hoover Dam and removed several hairpin turns and blind curves from the route. It is jointly named for Mike O'Callaghan, Governor of Nevada from 1971 to 1979, and Pat Tillman, an American football player who left his career with the Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the United States Army and was killed in Afghanistan in 2004 by friendly fire.
Boulder City Hospital is an 82-bed facility, a 47-bed long-term care facility, and a 10-bed Geriatric Behavioral Medicine Center.
In the U.S. state of Nevada, U.S. Route 93 is a major United States Numbered Highway traversing the eastern edge of the state. The highway connects the Las Vegas area to the Great Basin National Park, and provides further connections to Ely and Wells. US 93 also provides the majority of the most direct connection from the major metropolitan areas of Las Vegas and Phoenix to the Boise, Idaho metropolitan area.
The Hoover Dam Police, officially the Bureau of Reclamation Police, was a federal security police force, stationed at Hoover Dam 23 miles (37 km) southeast of Las Vegas under the command of the US Bureau of Reclamation. Reclamation Police Officers were stationed only at Hoover Dam. Hoover Dam was both listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985. Hoover Dam has been designated as National Critical Infrastructure. The primary responsibilities of the Hoover Dam Police Officer were to protect the dam, the world's 57th-largest hydroelectric generating station, which provides about 2,080 megawatts, its associated structures, and to safeguard the lives of visitors and employees. The Hoover Dam Police were assisted by unarmed Bureau of Reclamation Security Guards who control access to reclamation facilities and deter individuals who might consider criminal activities or terrorist acts.
Louis Rea "Doug" Douglass was an American civil engineer. He spent more than 20 years with the United States Bureau of Reclamation and was in charge of Hoover Dam and the surrounding park land for four years.
Boulder Wash is an ephemeral stream or wash in Clark County, Nevada. Its mouth is at its confluence with the Boulder Wash Cove of Lake Mead at an elevation 1,276 feet at when Lake Mead is at its full level. Currently as the reservoir is at a much lower level its mouth is found at approximately 36°10′07″N114°33′07″W. Its source is at 36°13′36″N114°31′22″W at an elevation of 2,841 feet in the Black Mountains. It flows down a canyon into the upper Pinto Valley southwestward before turning southeastward to Boulder Wash Cove.
Lords of St. Thomas is a 2018 historical novel by American writer Jackson Ellis. The novel won the inaugural Howard Frank Mosher Book Prize in 2017, selected by Howard Frank Mosher himself shortly before his death in January 2017.
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