In the spring of 1931, in a rugged desert canyon on the Arizona-Nevada border, an army of workmen began one of the most difficult and daring building projects ever undertaken―the construction of Hoover Dam. Through the worst years of the Great Depression as many as five thousand laborers toiled twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to erect the huge structure that would harness the Colorado River and transform the American West. Construction of the giant dam was a triumph of human ingenuity, yet the full story of this monumental endeavor has never been told. Now, in an engrossing, fast-paced narrative, Joseph E. Stevens recounts the gripping saga of Hoover Dam. Drawing on a wealth of material, including manuscript collections, government documents, contemporary newspaper and magazine accounts, and personal interviews and correspondence with men and women who were involved with the construction, he brings the Hoover Dam adventure to life. Described here in dramatic detail are the deadly hazards the work crews faced as they hacked and blasted the dam’s foundation out of solid rock; the bitter political battles and violent labor unrest that threatened to shut the job down; the deprivation and grinding hardship endured by the workers’ families; the dam builders’ gambling, drinking, and whoring sprees in nearby Las Vegas; and the stirring triumphs and searing moments of terror as the massive concrete wedge rose inexorably from the canyon floor. Here, too, is an unforgettable cast of characters: Henry Kaiser, Warren Bechtel, and Harry Morrison, the ambitious, headstrong construction executives who gambled fortune and fame on the Hoover Dam contract; Frank Crowe, the brilliant, obsessed field engineer who relentlessly drove the work force to finish the dam two and a half years ahead of schedule; Sims Ely, the irascible, teetotaling eccentric who ruled Boulder City, the straightlaced company town created for the dam workers by the federal government; and many more men and women whose courage and sacrifice, greed and frailty, made the dam’s construction a great human, as well as technological, adventure. Hoover Dam is a compelling, irresistible account of an extraordinary American epic. Joseph E. Stevens , a graduate of Princeton University, lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His first book, Hoover Dam: An American Adventure, was published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1988. It received the Western Writers of America Spur Award, the John H. Dunning Prize of the American Historical Association, and the W. Turrentine Jackson Prize of the Western History Association. Hoover Dam An American Adventure By Joseph E. Stevens UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS Copyright © 1990 Joseph E. Stevens All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8061-2283-0 Contents Preface, 1. A River and a Dream, 2. "A Deadly Desert Place", 3. To Turn a River, 4. Under the Eagle's Wing, 5. "Incessant, Monstrous Activity", 6. "A Callous, Cruel Lump of Concrete", 7. "Twentieth-Century Marvel", Notes, Bibliography, Index, CHAPTER 1 A River and a Dream William H. Wattis, seventy-two-year-old president of the Utah Construction Company, builder of railroads, highways, and dams, one of the wealthiest men in the West, was dying of cancer. Day after day he submitted to the painful injections prescribed by his physicians and watched for signs of improvement, hoping against hope that some of his old vigor would return. The ache in his tumor-ravaged hip, the withering of his arms and legs, the lassitude settling like a shroud over his mind and body only grew worse, however. To his wife, his nurses, and to the friends who came to visit him in his modest room in San Francisco's St. Francis Hospital, he continued to protest that he was growing stronger, but it was a transparent lie. Death was the prognosis, and he knew that his time had almost run out. Swaddled in a cocoon of blankets, he sat before an open window that commanded a view of the San Francisco skyline; it was March 2, 1931, and warm spring sunshine bathed the city. On the bed beside him, a cigar smoldered in an ash tray. He reached for it, noting ruefully how the skin on the back of his hand, once taut and ruddy from long hours outdoors, was now crinkled and sallow. As he puffed on the cigar, his gaunt cheeks collapsed inward but his head remained fixed and motionless, as if he could not summon the energy to turn it. Only his eyes, bright blue and sparkling, seemed truly alive. Just now they were focused on a group of men standing at the foot of his bed. Seeing those erect figures, heads bobbing in animated conversation, W. H. Wattis forced the joint in his cancerous hip to shift, putting him in a more upright sitting position. The groan that slipped from his chalky lips went unheard, drowned out by traffic noise drifting up from Hyde and Bush streets and by the sound of voices in the crowded hospital room. The exchanges were crisp and rapid fire, carried on in