HOOVER DAM

HOOVER DAM'S HARD-HAT TOURS WE STOOD QUIETLY DURING THE SLOW DESCENT OF THE ELEVATOR, DROPPING 53 STORIES THROUGH

506 feet of earth, listening to our guide, Bruce Swanson. “This is the largest capacity elevator this side of the Mississippi,” he said. There were 15 of us, including my five-yearold daughter and 11-year-old son. And we all had plenty of elbowroom. At the end of our ride, the huge doors slid open.

Before us stretched long graceful hallways decked out in stylish Art Deco decor. Stunning terrazzo flooring invited us to bend down and appreciate its cool smoothness. “This floor was installed for $58,000 in the 1930s, but today it would cost about $15.5 million,” said Swanson. “Whoa!” my son exclaimed.

We could have been in any fashionable public building designed in the era of the speakeasies and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

But we weren't. We were on a hard-hat tour of Hoover Dam, which anchors against the steep slopes of Black Canyon, spanning the border between Arizona and Nevada. Bracing back the waters of Lake Mead, Hoover Dam regulates the Colorado River as it flows downstream to millions of Californians and thirsty desert dwellers, while simultaneously harnessing the churning current for electrical power.

Concrete for the dam was poured from 1933 to 1935. Forty-five feet thick at the top and 660 feet thick at the bottom, the dam contains almost 3.3 million cubic yards of concrete, enough to build a 1930sera two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York. Workers used 8.2 million pounds of dynamite to blast away the andescite rock and create space in the canyon for the dam. We could see calcium carbonate running through the exposed walls. “That's the same ingredient that's in Tums,” informed Swanson. “But please don't lick the walls if you have a stomachache.” Stepping into the generator room, I knew why we'd been given earplugs. A powerful hum filled the air. Each of the 17 generators weighs 2,200 tons, and has a 38-inchdiameter steel shaft running down into the river, turning at 180 rpm. One generator can supply electricity for a city of 100,000 residents. Two 300-ton bridge cranes run on tracks overhead, and both are needed to lift one of the 500-ton rotors out of a generator.

In another room, we stood above a black “header” pipe so large you could drive a train through it. The floor shook as more than 12,000 cubic feet per second of water blasted through the pipe, enough to fill 960,000 soft-drink cans.

Reaching the end of another tunnel, we took turns staring up and down a seemingly endless staircase running alongside the inner face of the dam as water dripped from the wall.

“We prefer the term 'seeping' to 'leaking,” said Swanson. “The dam doesn't actually leak, but because concrete is porous, water moves constantly through the wall.” “Where does it go?” one woman wondered.

“It drains down to the sump,” Swanson answered, pointing down the disappearing staircase, “where it's pumped back out into the river.” In November, 1932, workers diverted the Colorado River into 16,000 feet of tunnels, and erected cofferdams to protect the construction site. Engineers located bedrock 135 feet below the old riverbed, and employed state-of-the-art techniques in constructing the dam. Overhead buckets, each holding 16 tons of concrete, were lowered on cables across the canyon and poured into molds every 78 seconds for three years. Workers ran ice water through one-inch tubing placed every five feet to cool the concrete before setting the next level.

Next we headed down a dimly lit tunnel toward a large grate allowing only fragments of light to seep through. We took turns peering through it, stunned to realize we were staring right out of the face of the dam.

“This is the same thing Harrison Ford jumped out of in The Fugitive,” exclaimed one man.

“Well, that wasn't an entirely accurate scene,” Swanson chuckled. “Ford's character was somehow able to push that grate out all by himself, and I guarantee that if every one of you threw yourselves at once against this one, it wouldn't budge.” Later we emerged onto the decks of the power plants at the riverside base of the dam. Were the Washington Monument (OPPOSITE PAGE) The lights of Hoover Dam reflect in the still waters of the Colorado River below Lake Mead.

(LEFT) The hum of the dam's massive electric generators fills the air as earplug-equipped visitors tour the generator room.

(BELOW) The angular style of Oskar J. W. Hansen's Art Deco-influenced Winged Figures of the Republic graces the entrance to the dam's visitors center.

standing next to us, its summit would be five feet shorter than the top of the dam. And the dam still extends 160 feet below the waterline. It took six years before Lake Mead's waters rose high enough to test Hoover Dam's spillways. The intake towers, second largest in the world when installed in the 1930s, retain that record today. And, said Swanson, although 96 men were killed in accidents during construcIn addition, there are no bodies buried in Hoover Dam's concrete, a popular myth.

Reappearing topside, we faced the immense sculpture Winged Figures of the Republic by Oskar J.W. Hansen, who said the artwork expresses the “immutable calm of intellectual resolution, and the enormous power of trained physical strength, equally enthroned in placid triumph of scientific accomplishment.” Looking back at Hoover Dam, I decided Hansen had found the nail and hit it squarely on the head.

WHEN YOU GO

Hoover Dam is on U.S. Route 93 at the Arizona-Nevada border. The visitors center, which is open daily except Thanksgiving and Christmas, has a rooftop overlook, a rotating theater, and an exhibit gallery. It offers an informative interpretive program. General admission is $2 to $8, free for age six and under, and includes the basic tour. There is a $2 per car fee for parking. Hard-hat tours are available at $25 per person. For more information, call the Hoover Dam Visitor Center, (702) 294-3523 or fax (702) 294-3585.