2004-7-27
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VOICE ONE:
This is Bob Doughty.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember with
EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today we tell about Hoover Dam.
It was the largest and most difficult structure of its kind ever
built when work started in nineteen-thirty-one.
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VOICE ONE:
Our report today about Hoover Dam must begin with the Colorado
River. This river made the dam necessary. The Colorado River begins
high in the Rocky Mountains. It begins slowly, during the dark
months of winter. Heavy snow falls on the Rocky Mountains.
The snow is so deep in some areas that it will stay on the ground
well into the hot days of summer. But the snow does melt. Ice cold
water travels down the mountains and forms several rivers -- the
Gila River, the Green River, the Little Colorado, the San Juan, the
Virgin and the Gunnison Rivers. These rivers link together and form
the beginnings of the Colorado River. The Colorado River flows
through or provides water for the states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah,
New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California. Then it crosses the
border into Mexico.
VOICE TWO:
The Colorado River has always been extremely powerful. The river
created the huge Grand Canyon. The violent water cut hundreds of
meters deep into the desert floor of Arizona. The Grand Canyon is
proof of the power of this great river.
The Grand Canyon was cut into the desert floor beginning
thousands of years ago. But the power of this river has been
demonstrated in more modern times.
Between nineteen-oh-five and nineteen-oh-seven, the Colorado
River caused great amounts of flooding in parts of Arizona and
California. Huge amounts of water ran into a low area in the dry,
waterless desert that had once been an ancient lake. In two years of
flooding, the Colorado River filled the ancient lake. That lake is
called the Salton Sea. Today, it is about fifty-six kilometers long
by twenty-five kilometers wide. It is even larger in years of heavy
rain.
VOICE ONE:
The flooding that created the Salton Sea also flooded homes,
towns and farming areas. Many people were forced to flee their
homes. Government leaders knew they had to do something to prevent
such floods in the future. In nineteen-eighteen, a man named Arthur
Davis proposed building a dam to control the Colorado River. Mister
Davis was a government engineer. He said the dam should be built in
an area called Boulder Canyon on the border between the states of
Arizona and Nevada.
VOICE TWO:
Building the dam would not be a simple matter. The people of
seven states and the people of Mexico needed and used the water of
the Colorado River. Much of that area is desert land. Water is
extremely important. Without water from the Colorado River, farming
is not possible. Without water, life in the desert is not possible.
On November twenty-fourth, nineteen-twenty-two, officials signed
a document in Santa Fe, New Mexico. That document is called the
Colorado River Compact. The document tells how the seven states
would share the water of the Colorado River. It was agreed this
could be more easily done with the aid of a dam. Later an agreement
was signed with Mexico to supply it with water from the Colorado
River.
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VOICE ONE:
The area chosen for the dam was called Black Canyon. The walls of
Black Canyon rise almost two-hundred-forty-three meters above the
river. An ancient volcano formed the rock in Black Canyon. Engineers
decided the rock would provide a good strong support for the
proposed dam.
However, the area also presented problems. The nearest railroad
was sixty kilometers away. There was no electric power. And, in the
summer, the temperature in the desert in Black Canyon could reach as
high as forty-eight degrees Celsius.
A great deal of work was done before operations started on the
dam. Workers built a town called Boulder City to house employees
working on the dam. They built a large road from Boulder City to the
area of the dam. They built a railroad from a main line in Las
Vegas, Nevada to Boulder City. They built another railroad from
Boulder City to the dam area. And they built a three-hundred-fifty
kilometer power line from San Bernadino, California. This provided
electric power to the area where the dam was being built.
VOICE TWO:
The work on the dam began in April of nineteen-thirty-one.
Workers called "high scalers" were some of the first to begin
building the dam. They were suspended from ropes as they used heavy
air-powered hammers to break any loose rock away from the face of
the canyon walls. When they could not use hammers, they used
dynamite. One high scaler became very famous. His name was Arnold
Parks. He caught another worker who had fallen off the top of the
canyon.
Mister Parks held the worker to the wall of the canyon until
others came to help. Today, visitors can see a statue of the men who
worked as high scalers to build Hoover Dam.
The high scalers worked on the sides of the canyon. Other workers
dug huge tunnels deep in the floor of the canyon. This was done to
permit the Colorado River to flow away from the construction area.
This had to be done so the floor of the dam could be built.
On June sixth, nineteen-thirty-three, workers poured the first
load of a building material called concrete. Men in two special
factories worked day and night to make the concrete building
material for the dam.
Huge equipment moved millions of tons of rock and sand. In the
summer months, the terrible desert heat slowed the work but did not
stop it. Men who worked at night on the dam suffered less, but the
heat was still as high as thirty degrees Celsius.
VOICE ONE:
Slowly the great dam began to rise
from the floor of the canyon. From the canyon floor it reaches
two-hundred-twenty-one meters high. Workers poured the last of the
concrete on May twenty-ninth, nineteen-thirty-five. They had used
almost four-million cubic meters of concrete in the dam. Workers
also used more than twenty-million kilograms of steel to strengthen
the concrete in the dam.
VOICE TWO:
The work was dangerous for the more than five-thousand men who
worked on the structure. The extreme temperatures, falling objects
and heavy equipment caused accidents. The workers were provided with
medical care and two emergency vehicles to take them to a new
hospital in Boulder City. However, ninety-six men lost their lives
during the building of the great dam.
The companies building the dam had been given seven years to
complete the work. They did it in only five. The dam was finished on
March first, nineteen-thirty-six.
Other work now began. This work
would make the dam into one of the largest producers of electric
power ever built. The dam was built to control the powerful Colorado
River. But it was also meant to use the river to produce large
amounts of electric power.
Today, seventeen huge machines use the river's power to produce
electric power. The states of Arizona and Nevada share the power. So
do many cities in California, including Los Angeles, Burbank, and
Pasadena.
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VOICE ONE:
When the Hoover Dam was finished in nineteen-thirty-six, it was
the largest dam in the world. It was also the tallest. And it was
the largest power producer that used water power to make
electricity. Today this is no longer true. Taller dams, larger dams
and a few that produce more power have been created. But Hoover Dam
is still a huge and interesting place.
Visitors to Hoover Dam drive on a small road that passes Lake
Mead. They enter a special visitor's center to learn about the dam
and the men who built it. They ride high-speed elevators that go
deep inside the dam. They see the huge machines that produce
electric power.
Many visitors say they thought the name of the huge structure was
Boulder Dam. They are told that Hoover Dam is often called Boulder
Dam. However, it is named after former President Herbert Hoover.
Before he was president, Mister Hoover worked for many years to
make the construction of the dam possible. It was officially named
to honor him in nineteen-forty-seven.
Visitors leave the great dam with an understanding of how
difficult the project was. They learn that it still safely controls
the great Colorado River. And it also provides water and electric
power to millions of people in the American southwest.
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VOICE TWO:
This program was written by Paul Thompson. It was produced by
Mario Ritter. This is Steve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And this is Bob Doughty. Join us again next week for another
EXPLORATIONS program in VOA Special English.