2. 1. HOOVER DAM’S STORY
2. HOOVER DAM’S BEGINNING CONSTRUCTION
3. HOOVER DAM’S MATERIAL
4. HOOVER DAM’S CONSTRUCTION
5. HOOVER DAM’S ELECTRICITY MAKING
6. HOW HOOVER DAM’S ELECTRICITY WORKS
7. GALLERY
8. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Contents
4. HOOVER DAM’S BEGINNING CONSTRUCTION
• There were 6 big companies building and helping.
• Divert the river.
• Dynamite was used to make holes.
• Four tunnels were placed.
• Dynamite was used for 2 years.
• Work Men removed over ½ million cubic yards of blown up
remaining rubble.
• The tunnels were filled with 3 foot thick walls of concrete.
• High scalars drilled holes and packed them with dynamite.
• they would go back to the explosion area and pry rock.
• In November 1932, the Colorado River followed.
5. HOOVER DAM MATERIAL
• 12 miles upstream there was a good area of rock, sand, and gravel.
• A train then towed the material to a aggregate plant.
• There the sand and gravel went through a lot of tests
• Then they were screened, graded, and washed.
• Once that was done, they stock piled it.
• They shipped the material to Hoover Dam.
6. HOOVER DAM MATERIAL
• The material was sent to two mixing plants.
• One was located in the canyon bottom and the other located on the
Nevada rim.
• There would create concrete for the 4 ½ million cubic yards of
concrete.
• Once the concrete was finished, it was dispatched.
• Nine cable ways carried the concrete and other materials over to the
dam site.
Hoover Dam Canyon mixing plant Hoover Dam Nevada rim plant
7. HOOVER DAM’S CONSTRUCTION
• The first bucket con concrete was settled on June 6th 1933
• Hoover Dam then began its rise on Black Canyon.
• The cable ways lifted hundreds of buckets of concrete into the Dam format until
the dam reached its full 660 foot thick base.
• Poured in give foot layers of concrete the dam’s interlocking system moved
skyward.
• The crews made new records daily.
• The crews worked in all conditions. Hot, dry, rainy, snowy, smelly, etc.
• The workers only received 2 days off per year! Christmas and the fourth of July.
8. HOOVER DAM’S CONSTRUCTION
• People working at night.
• On June 1934, 1 year after the first pour, the dam had reached 2/3 of
its potential.
• Even then Hoover Dam had already reached an extremely impressive
height.
• Two spill ways were built.
• They were capable of holding 200000 cubic feet of water per second.
• On May 29th 1935 2 ½ years after the dam was built, crews started to
dump the last buckets of cement.
• The whole dam was made up of 3 ¼ cubic yard of concrete.
• Hoover Dam was completed 2 ½ years ahead of schedule!
9. HOOVER DAM’S ELECTRICITY MAKING.
• Hoover Dam’s Turbines needed pipes of massive size.
• 18ft-30ft in diameter and six inches in thickness.
• It was impossible to ship units of this size across country.
So they made a plant that made the steel pipes.
• The plant made and rolled the 3 miles of pipe needed for
Hoover Dam’s electricity.
• In the plant the crew needed special machines and perfect
measuring to make the piping perfect.
• After the steel pipes were made, they put it in a giant press
that rolled the steel into shape.
10. HOOVER DAM ELECTRICITY MAKING
• One plate was only a third of a ring.
• Three plates put together was 1 a ring.
• The rings were 18ft by 11ft.
• Two of the ring put together equaled 184 tons.
• Carts were made to carry the rings.
• A150ft cable way lifted the rings into the correct
area.
• The rings were then pulled into place by a cable way
and held together by pressure pins.
11. HOW HOOVER DAM’S ELECTRICITY WORKS
• Turbine pits were made to hold Hoover Dam’s 17 turbines.
• Generator were being installed in 1935.
• The first turbine named N2 was completed in October 26,
1936.
• Turbine N2 was built to serve the city of L.A.
• Generator after generators were being build because of
California, Nevada, and Arizona.
• In 1956 the last generator N8 was being made after laying
empty for over 25 years.
12. HOOVER DAM’S ELECTRICITY
• The turbines consisted of a 95000 Kilowatt, 60 cycle, 16500 volt
generator.
• The water is controlled by a butterfly.
• The parts for the turbines were shipped across 60 rail cars.
• They were pulled over by cable ways and lowered into the power
house.
• The parts were then lower into the turbine room.
• Then then installed the turbine and then the butterfly valve to
control the water flow.
• Once connected to the roaster, the turbine was ready to work.
• It was completed after test runs on December 1, 1961
• After N8 was made, the dam made over 1 and 1/3 million kilowatts.
• Hoover Dam had cost over 171 million dollars in total.
