Construction began in 1931 and Hoover Dam was completed in 1936. It still stands tall as an engineering marvel high above the Colorado River between Arizona and Nevada. Hoover Dam attracts over 7 million visitors from around the new world every year feeding vast tourism into the Las Vegas Nevada and Arizona economy. The building of Hoover Dam took the brilliance of over 200 engineers to pull off what many deemed as almost impossible. And it was the fortitude of over 7,000 dam workers that endured amazingly harsh conditions and extreme dangers to complete Hoover Dam almost two years ahead of schedule.
The Dam of Hoover Dam
At the time of construction (1935), Hoover Dam was the largest in the world and although long since surpassed it is still an amazing structure and a marvel of engineering – a huge, curving wall of plain concrete 660 feet thick at the base and 726 feet high set between the vertical walls of Black Canyon, accompanied by strangely-angled pylons, cables, power generating plants, and other machinery. In 1955, the dam was selected as one of the Seven Modern Engineering Wonders in the USA by the American Society of Civil Engineers, and it was later designated a National Historic Landmark. Also known as Boulder Dam, the usual name commemorates the 31st president Herbert Hoover, who was in office during the start of the project.
Tours of Hoover Dam
In the late 1990s, they constructed new visitor facilities, including a multi-storey car park and open area cafe, both on the west side of the river, opposite the visitor center. Free parking is available at 13 lots along US 93 on the east side, the most distant being half a mile from the state border through the middle of the dam. The Bureau of Reclamation owns and operates the facility, conducting guided tours down into the dam and around the generating rooms at the base. Hoover Dam is an Awesome Place For Vacations. The tours used to begin via elevators right on the top of the dam, and generally required only a short wait, but now the entrance is through the new visitor center, and busy summer days may see several hundred people queuing in line, with a waiting time of up to two hours.
Background on the Hoover Dam Bypass Project
United States Highway 93 (U.S. 93) serves as a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) route, but congestion at the Hoover Dam site necessitated the development of the Hoover Dam Bypass Project. Spanning 3.5 miles, this corridor starts at milepost 2.2 in Clark County, Nevada, crosses the Colorado River downstream of the dam, and ends near milepost 1.7 in Mohave County, Arizona, on U.S. 93. The stakeholders formed a Project Management Team (PMT) to oversee the design and construction, comprising representatives from major stakeholders including the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Arizona and Nevada States, Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), and National Park Service (NPS). The Central Federal Lands Highway Division (CFLHD) leads project procurement, design, and construction management.
CFLHD awarded a contract to HDR Engineering, Inc. to provide design and construction support services for the Hoover Bypass Project. An integrated team of professionals from HDR Engineering, T.Y. Lin International, Sverdrup Civil, Inc., and several supporting sub-consultants make up the consultant team, collectively known as the Hoover Support Team.
Highline system
The Highline system played a critical role in the contractors’ operations because it allowed them to deliver materials out over the canyon while continuing work on the 1,900-foot-long Colorado River Bridge. They built two tower cranes on opposite sides of the canyon, forming dual high lines. When they erected the highlights, the crane hook could access the entire length of the bridge for delivering materials used in both foundation structures and the main arch crossing. The two highline tower cranes unexpectedly toppled, significantly delaying the bridge portion of the Hoover Dam Bypass project in 2006. They redesigned and rebuilt them before proceeding with the final construction of the arch portion of the bridge.