The Art of Hoover Dam

(Left) Guarding the entrance to Hoover Dam, and commemorating the victory of the dam's completion, Oskar J. Hansen's Winged Figures of the Republic represent the Greek mythological figure Nike, the winged goddess of victory. Josef Muench photo Art Deco moldings, terrazzos, and bas-relief embellishments also ornament other areas throughout the Dam. Alan Benoit photos "No longer can turbines, tunnels, galleries, cranes, generators, and control boards be assembled with the sole consideration of service and efficiency when, without in any way interfering with function or adding much to cost, these same items can be built into a magnificent and inspiring thing of beauty."

So wrote Allen Tupper True, a consulting artist, during the construction of Hoover Dam. Visitors to the dam are often so awed by its dimensions and statistics that they ignore the grace and strength of the artwork which was incorporated into the project. From the color-coded generator parts to the broad, godlike torsos in Oskar J. Hansen's five-part concrete bas-reliefs (found on two of the elevator towers) the touch of the artist's hand offers a pleasant foil to the rough contours of the Colorado Gorge.

At the entrance to the dam, one's eye is immediately drawn to Hansen's Winged Figures of the Republic. The statues' uplifted wings stand as the artist's symbol to "the immutable calm of intellectual resolution and the enormous power of trained physical strength-equally enthroned in placid triumph of scientific accomplishment." From every angle, the statues fill the heart with a feeling of inspiration and wonder, often reminding the viewer of mythical gods who possessed untold strength and magical powers.

Within the dam, a selection of color schemes and decorative motifs of the Southwestern Indians was chosen as the basis for all decoration. Protective coatings of paint for machinery were carefully planned according to a basic color scheme often used in Indian pottery and basketwork. The bold patterns used by the Indians were the inspiration for the terrazzo floor designs created for the dam by Joseph Martina. Each design is different and represents one of the Indian tribes in the Western states. One design (an adaptation of two Pima basket patterns) bears a striking similarity to the engineer's basic designs of generators and turbines, with its suggestion of centrifugal motion.

Since the dam went into operation in 1935, about 22 million tourists have traversed the inner tunnels, daily trodding over Martina's terrazzo designs. Some never look down at the floor as they pass by. In their eagerness to reach the huge generators, people ignore the handsome bronze elevator doors with inlaid eagles and the immaculately preserved art deco lighting fixtures and fail to notice the graceful sweep of the huge spillways as they disappear into the earth. It takes but a moment to look past Hansen's inlaid terrazzo star map and universal clock (which rest in front of The Winged-Figures of the Republic) and gear one's mind toward the artistic touches which grace Hoover Dam. The rewards to be reaped are astonishingly rich.

A THING OF BEAUTY The Art Deco of Hoover Dam

text continued from page 34 engineer. The uncle wrote back, “They're a tough bunch of men. Come on out. We'll find you something.” Something. Very nearly, Chubbs' tombstone. He blundered into fused, lighted blasting areas. He hugged stone walls to duck buckets of concrete. More than once rocky chunks bounced off his hard hat. But Chubbs was lithe and lucky, on a job that claimed 96 lives from 1931 to 1937, and as many as 1500 injuries a month. Some bad days 100 men would quit.

“Seeing men killed was quite a shock,” Chubbs says. “I was working near one man when a piece of 8 x 10 dropped on him and caved in his head. I watched the life go out of him.” Chubbs hung on, advancing to stock clerk and inspector. Half a buck an hour may not seem much today, but in 1931 bread was a dime a loaf, steak 35 cents a pound, eggs 38 cents a dozen. And one-fourth of the nation's workers were unemployed.

When Chubbs first reported for work, Black Canyon was rumbling underfoot as if torn by earthquake. Four tunnels, each 56 feet in diameter, were being punched through canyon walls around the damsite. Simultaneously, earthen cofferdams above and below the damsite were rushed to completion. Quickly the riverbed was pumped dry and scooped to bedrock so that placement of concrete could begin.

Nothing of this scale and design had been attempted-ever. Into wooden frames were poured Bunyanesque building blocks ranging from 25to 60-feet square and 30-feet high. From the initial pour June 6, 1933, to the last, May 29, 1935, as many as 36 carloads of cement daily accumulated into the 230 gigantic interlocking blocks. To cool the curing concrete and prevent shrinking and cracking, engineers devised an ingenious system. Hundreds of miles of cold-water pipes were embedded into each pour. The dam cooled in months, instead of centuries.

Every aspect of Hoover dwarfed the builders. Four intake towers, tall as skyscrapers. Spillways with draft to float battleships. A fleet of 200 trucks. A cableway rated at 150 tons. Needle valves wider than a man is tall. At 726.4 feet above bedrock, world's highest (at the time). Enough power eventually to energize 13 million 100-watt light bulbs. Or supply all the electrical needs of a city of a million people. But the dam also drastically altered a free-spirited river, in retrospect a stiff environmental price. But Chubbs and other old-timers tick off benefits which nowadays are taken for granted:

Million barrels of oil per year.

So - So crucial was Hoover Dam considered, on the day Pearl Harbor was struck armed soldiers occupied the approaches, and throughout World War II travelers were escorted by sabotage-wary troops. Much of America's industrial war effort in the West drew power from Hoover.

Among the 174 current employees, Steve Chubbs is most senior and visible, although such tour leaders as Dan Sullivan and James Sweeny have been there a long time, too. Chubbs wears a railroad engineer's cap as he makes his rounds to every tunnel and catwalk. He checks stress gauges, takes the dam's temperature, measures uplift pressure, retrieves water samples, and charts accumulations of silt. He operates off boats and records data in his powerhouse laboratory.

When Chubbs and company lead their tours, they "try to make every visitor feel like they're on an adventure." Polite and professional, the guide corps assumes an attitude of showcasing the best of the United States. And that message goes to a large percentage of foreign tourists, many from developing nations adapting the lessons of Hoover Dam to their own needs of flood control and hydroelectric power.

Hoover guides rattle off statistics to boggle minds from Bohemia to Burma. Two miles of inspection tunnels. Tours are conducted every day of the year. The crest of the dam is 1244 feet, the base 660-feet thick. Today, in addition to Hoover, there are six major dams on the Colorado. The flagpole is 142-feet tall. Lake Mead can hold two years of Colorado River runoff. Hoover Dam was completed in just five years, two years ahead of schedule. Concrete in the dam amounts to 3.2 million cubic yards, a larger volume than the Pyramid of Cheops. That much concrete would make a 16-foot-wide highway between San Francisco and New York. If stacked solid on a city block the concrete would exceed the Empire State Building in height. All of Hoover Dam's materials, if loaded on railroad cars, would make a train reaching all the way to Kansas City, Missouri.

And more. Actually, Hoover's world-class superlatives have been lost to other, grander projects in America and abroad. Lake Nasser behind Aswan High Dam in Egypt is 300-miles long. In 1949, the Grand Coulee Dam, in the state of Washington, overtook Hoover in power capacity, and today there are some five-dozen dams making more power than Hoover. There are taller dams in Russia, Columbia, Switzerland, Canada, California. Even Hoover's enormous mass would make but a pebble in the super earth-filled dikes such as Don Pedro on the Tuolumne, or the Kiev on the Dnieper. Hoover's storage capacity-30 million acre-feet-is a teacup to a bucket compared to the 166 million capacity of the Owen Falls Dam in Uganda, at the headwaters of the Nile. Even so, Lake Mead remains the largest artificial body of water in the United States and Hoover, the highest concrete dam in the western hemispere.

HOOVER DAM

Pedro on the Tuolumne, or the Kiev on the Dnieper. Hoover's storage capacity-30 million acre-feet-is a teacup to a bucket compared to the 166 million capacity of the Owen Falls Dam in Uganda, at the headwaters of the Nile. Even so, Lake Mead remains the largest artificial body of water in the United States and Hoover, the highest concrete dam in the western hemispere.

Dams attract controversy like driftwood. Hoover is not the exception. Disputes persist regarding Hoover's cheap power; both Nevada and Arizona covet greater shares for burgeoning populations. And decades after completion, half the people call it "Hoover," the other half, "Boulder." This dispute bristles with partisan politics. The original name honored Herbert C. Hoover, President at the time the project started. Certain powerful Democrats tried to change the name to Boulder when President Hoover emerged as scapegoat for the Great Depression. During the administration of Harry S. Truman, the name Hoover was reaffirmed. Yet...

"I call it Boulder Dam," says Steve Chubbs to a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. "Do you know why? I was getting 50 cents an hour when I started, and old Hoover cut everybody's pay. Mine dropped to 43 cents an hour. I never did like the man after that.

Ironically, too, some experts speculate that Hoover Dam (not to mention Panama Canal, the Transcontinental Railroad, or the Golden Gate Bridge) couldn't be funded and approved under an environmental ethic embraced by a nation different from that of "know-how, can-do, let's-go" America. For better or poorer, the United States marches to another drumbeat. Photography of the bunting, the plaques, the pageantry, the statuary of the dam's dedication day now seem oddly chauvinist and single-minded.

That day, September 30, 1935, Chubbs was seated "in a box with a bunch of big shots" when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signaled for silence.

"I'm speechless," he had told his hosts earlier, upon first seeing the completed dam. He wasn't of course. He addressed the Hoover builders: "This is an engineering victory of the first order-another great achievement of American resourcefulness, skill, and determination. This is why I congratulate you who have created Boulder Dam and on behalf of the nation say to you, well done!"

Chubbs took that speech to heart, and stayed on. He is active in the 31 Club of original Hoover workers.

Steve Chubbs of Hoover Dam. On the way to becoming a legend in his own time, Chubbs has been on the scene since the early stages of construction. He blundered into blasting areas, ducked buckets of concrete and falling rock, and watched helplessly as co-workers died. Today, at an age when many men feel the heavy hand of time, Chubbs says he'll not retire, "as long as I can pull my weight...they'll have to carry me out."

Other visitors come and go, by boat, by bus, by helicopter, by car, by jet. Last year, as a Fourth of July stunt, a patriotic mountaineer rappelled down the face of the dam. Chubbs, who in 1937 spent weeks in a boatswain's chair inspecting every inch of the face of the dam for cracks (finding none), was not much impressed. Hoover Dam's eternal tourist has done it all.

"And as long as I can pull my weight, I'll not retire," he asserts. "I guess they'll have to carry me out."