LAKE MEAD NATIONAL RECREATION AREA

Lake Mead National/AMEMOIR Recreation Area

As Lake Mead celebrates its golden anniversary this month, its master planner tells how one of the nation's most-visited playgrounds got its start...

In the summer of 1935, the National Park Service dispatched me to Boulder City, Nevada, the new govern-ment-built town near where a gigantic water control and hydroelectric project was nearing completion, the likes of which had never before been seen in the West-or anywhere else. My job was to initiate a plan and program for the reservoir area. The Bureau of Reclamation, the Interior Department felt, shouldn't have to be bothered with reservoir area management. We of the Park Service were the recreation specialists; so we were told to get with it.

When I arrived, construction engineer John Page of Reclamation welcomed me and offered assistance, as did Frank "Boss" Crow, local headman for Six Companies, the consortium building the dam. Another lending encouragement was Dr. Elwood Mead, former commissioner of reclamation, a wonderful and wise counselor in the ways of government and politics. A word from him went a long way. It was his name that was given to the lake forming behind the huge dam, a reservoir that today draws people by the millions to this corner of Mohave County, making it one of the most heavily visited tourist areas in the nation.

I got a room at the Boulder Dam Hotel at 1305 Arizona Street-it has now been restored-moved out the bed, and replaced it with a cot and a borrowed drafting table. Map and other supplies I drew from the Bureau of Reclamation office.

A friend who owned a high-wing Stinson aircraft started almost immediately flying me on reconnaissance of the lake area and surroundings. Studying ground from the air was an art we both practiced. We flew over what would eventually be the 550-mile lakeshore, checking out potential locations for recreation sites, which I marked on maps. Then, back at my drafting table, I'd create rough layouts and write descriptions with cost estimates. We considered water, sewers, waste disposal, communications, roads, trails, campgrounds, buildings, plantings For shade-everything the public and the Park Service would eventually need.

On September 30, 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself dedicated the dam project, calling it "a great achievement of American resourcefulness, skill, and determination." He seemed to enjoy himself thoroughly. The dam, built in the depths of the Depression, cost more than fifty-five million dollars. A total of 3500 workers had completed the job in just five years.

Following the President to the podium, Secretary of the Interior Harold Le Claire Ickes announced the name would be Boulder Dam-derived from the site originally proposed, Boulder Canyon, about eighteen miles up the Colorado River from the actual construction site at the head of Black Canyon. The name "Boulder," though imprecise, was indelibly imbedded in the nomenclature and the literature of the day. It stood for both Arizona and Nevada, the Colorado River, and the Southwest. It rolled around nicely on the tongue. Even the media liked it. It lasted until 1947, when the dam was (OPPOSITE PAGE) The scale of Hoover Dam is difficult to comprehend. The equivalent of forty-four stories tall, containing six and a half million tons of concrete, the dam bolds back the Colorado River to form Lake Mead and make possible the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

renamed for Herbert Hoover, under whose administration construction began.

On dedication day, I along with several National Park Service friends and other associates circulated among the crowds touring the facility. My most vivid recollection is of one hell of a lot of folks at a swell picnic with practically no rest rooms.

When the recreation planning project started, I had worked alone, receiving technical advice and support, however, from various Park Service and Reclamation authorities. Then, one morning in the early winter of 1935, help arrived at last an entire trainload of 200 Civilian Conservation Corps boys. Most of those young men had never dreamed of being in a place of refinement like Boulder City. Where to put them became an immediate problem. But Frank Crow came to the rescue with a loan of large dormitory buildings. Also, he and the Bureau of Reclamation supplied us with hand tools. There was no heavy equipment.

In no time, crews were at the lake hard at work, building boat ramps and a host of other projects. The boys were well taken care of, and the Army major in charge of them, a fine young chap, was very pleased.

Later I was transferred to Santa Fe, New Mexico, as district officer for the Southwest, from where I was able to watch over the program and see it along. I am sure our project helped demonstrate that link-ing the Park Service and the Bureau of Reclamation in a cooperative effort was beneficial. The partnership is still work-ing well at a number of reservoirs through-out the West.

Today our project, which sometimes seems to me to have been created in another century, encompasses two long lakes (Mead and Mohave) and their environs in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area: a superb attraction for fishermen, swimmers, skiers, boaters, campers, and a host of people simply seeking relaxation under clear blue skies.

Looking back on my career with the National Park Service, which was one long series of special assignments, I consider Lake Mead one of the most challenging and stimulating of them all.

George Collins served thirty-three years with the National Park Service, then continued as a conservationist in the private sector as a partner in Conservation Associates, a nonprofit independent consulting group devoted to helping public agencies acquire lands for parks and open space. Since 1951 he has played an important part in the effort to establish the Arctic International Wildlife Range in Alaska and Canada.

Selected Reading

Lake Mead-Hoover Dam: The Story behind the Scenery, by James C. Maxon. KC Publications, Las Vegas, Nevada, 1981.

Auto Tourguide to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, by Douglas B. Evans. Southwest Parks and Monuments Association, Globe, Arizona, 1971.

A Guide to the Desert Geology of Lake Mead National Recreation Area, by John Bezy. Southwest Parks and Monuments Association, Globe, Arizona, 1978.