A visit to Hoover Dam

Last year we enjoyed the tour of the amazing Grand Canyon. This time, coming from Vegas, we lost no time in proceeding to visit the next historic site…the Hoover Dam. Albeit the three-hour drive, Hoover Dam is still within the Arizona state.

To be able to see this huge complex, we immediately went up to the Hoover Dam Visitor Center, a place that provides an opportunity to easily find information about the dam, and is also a convenient starting point for visitors who wish to tour the facilities. So, we registered ourselves, paid the entrance fee and joined the tour of the power plant.

When the tour guide brought us to the elevator (with a capacity of 45 passengers) and announced we were going down 500 feet below the ground, I was scared stiff. In the ensuing pull-down of the lever, my heart beat faster. But thank God, I was calmed down when we saw hundreds of workers (engineers and helpers) at the bottom of the complex. I couldn’t imagine how they dug all those spaces below those boulders and huge rocks. There, we were given a perspective of the whole complex and this dam was then founded by Engr. Hoover sixty years ago.

At any rate, the Hoover Dam is located 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas at the Arizona-Nevada border. It was built during the Great Depression when thousands of men and their families came to Black Canyon to tame the Colorado River. It was the largest dam of its time and located in harsh climate, but still, the dam was completed within 5 years. Hoover Dam stops the natural flow of the Colorado River forming the 115 mile-long Lake Mead on the borders of Arizona and Nevada.

Now, more than 60 years later, Hoover Dam still stands as a world-renowned structure and is now a National Historical Landmark. Kudos to Boulder City…the town that built Hoover Dam!