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History That Doesn't Suck
178: “A Damn Big Dam”: Taming the Colorado River with the Hoover (or Boulder) Dam (Infrastructure pt. 1)
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Greg Jackson
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- [00:57]
Greg Jackson
Excludes restaurants welcome to History that Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor Greg Jackson and as in the classroom, my goal here is to make rigorously researched history come to life. As your storyteller, each episode is the result of laborious research with no agenda other than making the past come to life as you learn. If you'd like to help support this work, receive ad free episodes, bonus content and other exclusive perks. I invite you to join the HTDS membership program. Sign up for a seven day free trial today at htspodcast.com membership or click the link in the episode notes. It's about 3:30 in the blistering hot afternoon Friday, August 7, 1931. We're with well over 100 construction workers, all crammed on several barges transporting us along a short stretch of the Colorado river, about 25 miles distant from the sleepy town of Las Vegas. More specifically, we're at a point where this river straddling the Nevada Arizona state line flows through the Black Canyon. Named for the dark hue of its towering shadowed volcanic breccia based walls, the Black Canyon is so hardened it's like Mother Nature's concrete. That makes it the perfect site to make the daring attempt to build a gigantic dam. The tallest ever conceived by man at this point, capable of transforming the American Southwest's arid multi state desert into an irrigated and electrified land that can sustain life on a large scale. A land that could feed and support millions. And all these men on these barges with us, they're the ones doing the backbreaking work taking make that a reality. At this point, that Means blasting away rock and tunneling to temporarily divert the Colorado River. These men are about to start the swing shift doing just that. Finally, we've arrived. The barges stop at the water's edge. Wave after wave of construction workers disembark. But as they walk toward the blast site, they see a notice posted. They begin reading and wait. What? It says There's a reduction in pay. That's right. Their employer, a consortium of construction firms known as Six Companies is cutting pay for several positions. Hardest hit are the muckers, that is the men who clear out debris after a blast and the nippers who move heavy supplies and fill drilled out holes with explosives. Both groups are going from $5 a day down to $4, a 20% hit. Already burning in the well over 100 degree heat, the sweat covered men now burn with anger. They live in poorly ventilated bunk houses, get ripped off by the company on their lunches, have such paltry access to drinking water that some have died from heat stroke. And now six Companies wants to use new machinery as an excuse to cut hay. At this same moment, the dirt and sweat covered day crews come coming out of the tunnels apprised of the situation. They're just as angry. Seeing their moment, two wobblies, that is workers belonging to the far left Industrial Workers of the World, AKA the iww, call on their fellow workers to strike. Hundreds from both shifts answer in a chorus of agreement. That same night, 600 workers gather in the nearby Boulder City camp. They vote to strike and elect a committee to write up their demands. They want better pay, cool drinking water, an eight hour workday inclusive of travel time, adherence to Arizona's and Nevada's mining laws, no more gouging them on lunches and no punishment for the strikers. In short, it's not a radical wish list. And the workers carefully disavow anything having to do with the iww. The following morning, the committee meets with the boss, Six Companies superintendent, Frank Crow, A gangly six foot man who religiously protects his balding head from the harsh southwest sun with a Stetson hat. Frank listens as he always does. He's known for being tough but fair. But his response the next day only shows the tough side. Frank shuts down all work, fires all 1400 employees and and orders them to leave the project reservation. The next few days are tense. Frank describes the strike as a wobbly lead affair and disavows their complaints to the press, which readily gobbles up his words. This includes his claim of zero work accidents for the month of July, a claim that is technically True, but discounts 6 companies indirect role in deaths ranging from heat stroke to an untreated case of appendicitis. Troops at Fort Douglas in Utah are put on alert. The strike committee telegraphs Labor Secretary William Doak seeking protection. Meanwhile, almost the whole laid off workforce, 1,200 workers take their checks and comply with Frank's demand. Fleeing to Las Vegas on Monday, six companies sends sawed off shotgun wielding men with trucks to round up the 200 remaining strikers. But this at gunpoint, forced eviction is just barely stopped by a US Deputy Marshal. These holdouts are relieved and gain a bit of hope as Las Vegas based wobblies come visit and show support. But if the strikers think the deputy is assigned that Uncle Sam is sending the cavalry, they'll soon be disappointed. It's now 8am on a cloudy and damp Tuesday morning, August 11th. The remaining strikers watch as dark sedans, two trucks and a bus roll into their camp. A thin lipped, bespectacled man emerges from one of the sedans. It's Walker Young, the top ranking government officer here. He's accompanied by Assistant U.S. attorney General George Montrose and several U.S. marshals. He steps onto a bench so he can see the gathered mass of strikers. Walker thanks them for their thus far orderly strike, but explains that now all save those in the hospital have to leave the reservation. A voice rings out from the crowd. And if they refuse to move, the government will use force. Will it? Walker answers, we ask you to go and we depend upon you to go. There's been no question of force. But if we don't go, you'll make us? Yes. If you should refuse to go, we'll make you. Another angry voice hollers, have you got a warrant to put us out? The bespectacled Reclamation Bureau engineer pauses. He then nods toward one of the Marshals and replies, Mr. Fulmer is taking care of that end of it. The meeting pauses. All watch in shock as large boulders, loosened by the day's rare rain, crash down a hillside and into the Colorado River. Angry speeches follow, but the strike's committee leader, Red Williams, soon cuts it off. He says that they will leave, proving that this strike is about their rights as Americans, not violence. With heavy hearts and sympathy, the marshal and government officials load the men up and drive them down the Boulder Highway. They get off a few miles down the road and set up another camp in the rain, intent to continue their fight. But the strike won't last much longer. Who can really say no to work in the midst of the Great Depression. In another two days, work will recommence on the dam with wages at the lower rates. As posted on the Notice back on August 7th welcome to History that doesn't suck. I'm your professor Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. While Frank Crow successfully kept wages down, the workers didn't lose in every sense. Six companies promises never to cut wages again, and it doesn't. Other improvements include more water coolers and electric lighting in the camps, as well as a push to get workers and their families in proper housing within newly established Boulder City that fall. The only real loser is the IWW or the Wobblies. Instigating players but not leaders, they nonetheless take blame for the strike and its failure to raise wages, largely discrediting the leftist union but moving beyond the winners and losers. Most important to our narrative today is how this strike highlights the dangers and scope of the project that is today's the Boulder Dam Project, later known as the Hoover Dam, regardless of its name, and we'll use both as it changes in the story's timeline. The dam at the Black Canyon is a magnificent marvel of engineering and daring, one whose story dates back to the 19th century when Oliver Wozencraft first deliriously dreamed of taming the great Colorado River. We'll start there and then see how a canal in Southern California's new Imperial Valley leads to a far grander version of not just a canal, but a dam, the tallest dam ever conceived to this point in history. A dam that can reclaim, that is make usable for agriculture or settlement the American Southwest's vast desert lands. And from politicking to surveying, from excavating to tunneling, to men dangling from ropes hundreds of feet in the air and falling hundreds of feet to their deaths, we'll bear witness as 21,000 workers both before and during the Great Depression make this immense multi state reclamation of land a reality by constructing the Boulder Hoover Dam. So ready to brave the desert heat and dared to tame one of the wildest rivers on the planet with a dam wall, a dam power plant, dam intake towers and still other incredible features. Good. Then let's start this dam story to be clear this story about a dam by heading back to the 19th century rewind the Colorado river is a lifeline through the dry, arid southwestern United States. Starting in the Rocky Mountains, it flows southwest to where it has long slashed into the earth to form the Grand Canyon, then zigzags west toward, but not quite to Las Vegas, after which it heads south to the Gulf of California, just below the US Mexico border. In doing so, the Colorado covers more than 1400 miles. For countless centuries, its waters have been central to the livelihood of native Americans. By the 16th century, early Spanish explorers knew it and drank from it. And now, in the 19th century, it also sustains American settlers and US citizens. The Colorado river is a wild and powerful aquatic artery, defiantly carving its way through America's harsh, hot desert. But one man seems to think it can be controlled. It's an unspecified and scorching day in May 1849. We're in the Colorado desert along the pre Gadsden Purchase US Mexico border, not far from the scant settlement of Yuma, what will later be known as Arizona. And Oliver Wozencraft is riding a mule across the baking sand. Why? Because. Because this thickly haired and bearded mid-30s physician has heard the siren's call of the California gold rush. It's a treacherous journey. Foolish. Even locals warned him against attempting the four day desert crossing at this blistering time of year. Now, selfishly, they hoped he'd stay and serve as the town's doctor, but that doesn't mean they're wrong. Still, Oliver won't listen. He didn't leave his family, a medical professional practice in New Orleans, to play it safe. That said, Oliver is now companionless. Sometime after the second person passed out, the rest of his group turned back, leaving the ever determined doctor to continue his literal ride or die journey alone. But as the doctor should know, determination can't offset physical limitations. Hardly past a dry river channel of the Colorado river that only fills amid flooding, Oliver collapses. He's severely dehydrated, delirious. But in this state, the all but dead heatstroke victim has a revelation. As Oliver describes it, I felt no distress whatever. I was perspiring freely and was as limber and helpless as a wet rag. It was an exhilarating experience. It was then and there that I first conceived the idea of the reclamation of the desert. It's a beautiful sight and nearly Oliver's last. But just in the nick of time. His companions return, knowing he won't survive. They came back with a full water bag. They set him on a mule and bring him back to town. Undoubtedly romanticized in Oliver Wozencraft's recounting. This mirage that the gold seeking doctor saw on the brink of death nonetheless sticks with him. And his push to harness the Colorado river and thereby reclaim the desert through irrigation gains traction. Seven years later in 1856, US government geologist William P. Blake Notes in his report to Congress on a potential transcontinental railroad that the Colorado river is like the Nile. If a supply of water could be obtained for irrigation, it is probable that the greater part of the desert could be made to yield crops of almost any kind. By deepening the channel of the new river, a constant supply could be furnished to the interior portions of the desert. With this ringing endorsement, Oliver, who's now in the California state legislature, gets support from his state level colleagues, but not the Civil War torn Congress. A bill that would make his dream come true dies in Washington D.C. in 1862. Oliver tries again in 1887, but this bill dies too. As does the now 73 year old broken hearted doctor a few months later. But just because Oliver Wozencraft is dead doesn't mean the dream of a tamed Colorado river is. In 1882, a Michigan born bespectacled civil engineer named Charles Robinson Rockwood answers the call of a big time land promoter and heads to Yuma in what is now the Arizona Territory. Charles realizes that his initial plan isn't feasible. But he notices exactly what Oliver did. A canal would allow the dry land to be irrigated and reclaimed. This would bring thousands of farmers rushing to claim land along the canal route. In short, there's a fortune to be made here. Like Oliver's attempts, Charles fails initially. But after ditching his partner who proves to be a con man and persevering through the challenges of the panic of 1893 as well as the Spanish American War, Charles finds a new partner. In 1900, Southern California's deep pocketed and irrigation pro George Chaffee. Together their California Development Company or the CDC, undertakes this canal. And it works. On May 14, 1901, the CDC's canal opens, carrying the Colorado's waters across 60 miles of both American and Mexican turf to transform a portion of the Colorado Desert's desolate lands into a Garden of Eden. The Imperial press writes water is king. Here is its kingdom. Meanwhile, settlers flock to the area to farm, just as Charles predicted. The newly lushed desert is now dubbed the Imperial Valley. But alas, after three years of fairly consistent weather, the Colorado demonstrates its true force in 1904 by carrying enough sand, dirt and clay, or silt as it's called, to make the famously misbehaving Mississippi, or even the Nile look tame. Silt chokes the CDC's Life Giving Canal. Worse, the flooding Colorado shifts course, making a waterfall near the Imperial Valley's Salton Sea. With this shift, the Colorado threatens to carve out a mile deep and several mile long canyon in Arizona and California While flooding out Yuma. Crops are dying as Charles Rockwood frantically tries to save his precious canal. This is when Theodore Roosevelt steps in. The nature and landscape preserving president whose signature brought the Interior Department's new Reclamation Service to life just a couple of years ago aggressively suggests to the Southern Pacific Railroad's CEO E.H. harriman that his company should save the day. Responding to the presidential pressure to deliver, the Southern Pacific hauls the timber and rock needed to divert the Colorado river back to its original path by February of 1907. TR's plan has succeeded. Southwest's mighty river is back to its normal flow while the Imperial Valley's undaunted farmers hold their dangerous but fertile ground. Over the next decade, the CDC's replacement, the Imperial Irrigation District, lobbies Congress to build a canal solely on American soil to ensure total control. But the director of the Reclamation Service, Arthur Powell Davis, has a far grander idea. Not only this canal, but a dam. One that can control flooding, store water and generate power for far more than just the Imperial Valley. Done right, this could radically change the Southwest. With Congress blessing, the Reclamation Service launches a three year investigation along the Nevada Arizona border to find the right spot for such a dam. And what exactly are they looking for? As historian Joseph Stevens puts it, there are three key the geological and topographical nature of the site, the water and silt storage capacity of the reservoir that would be created and the location of the site in relation to a railhead that could serve as a base for the construction activities and in relation to markets for the hydroelectric power. In 1921, one of the Reclamation Service's most capable engineers, a Mr. Walker Young. Yes, the very same, whom we met in this episode's opening, heads out with a team of 58 men to assess two canyons. Boulder Canyon and just a bit farther downstream, Black Canyon. The surveyors work between 2am and 11am they do so to enjoy the cooler average summer temperature of 107 degrees. In the shade, at least the temperature directly under the sun reaches 128 degrees. The team soon determines that the Black Canyon's topography is more suitable for a dam. The canyon's volcanic breccia base is ideal and its fault lines, which show zero evidence of recent movement, will require minimal attention. One spot in particular, where the canyon walls are between 290 and 370ft apart before slowly widening as it goes up, is perfect. As Walker Young puts it, the Lord left the dam site there. It was only up to man to discover it and use it the following year, 1922, as Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, or the Great Engineer as the famous former mining engineer is also known, helps the seven western states that rely on the Colorado river compromise on a system for divvying up water shares. The Reclamation Service publishes its findings. This is the fall Davis report. It recommends constructing a dam at or near Boulder Canyon. Yes, you heard that right. Even though Walker Young and others prefer Black Canyon, the not entirely up to date report called for Boulder Canyon as such. When California's Senator Hiram Johnson and its 11th district congressman from Imperial Valley Phil Swing, proposed legislation for it in 1923. They call it the Boulder Canyon Project act, even though the better and selected site will be in Black Canyon. And that's how the Black Canyons dam became Boulder Dam. After much pushback from wealthy landowners who worry that the proposed project will damage their agricultural pursuits and eastern legislators who don't want to give westerners that much federal funding, the Swing Johnson bill finally reaches the senate floor in February 1927. In late May of 1928, the fourth iteration of the Sween Johnson bill passes in the House. Arizona filibusters, to no one's surprise, and blocks the Senate until December 14th. But a week later, President Silent Cal Coolidge signs the bill, quote for the purpose of controlling the floods, improving navigation and regulating the flow of the Colorado. Yeah, this is happening. While all of this is going on in Congress, Chief Engineer Raymond Walter and Chief Design Engineer Jack Savage of the Bureau of Reclamation, as the Reclamation Service is now known, are working to find the best dam design for the Black Canyon. Of their 32 ideas, an arched gravity dam is the winner. This means that the main massive dam wall will curve upstream, thereby pressing the flowing water's force against the canyon walls and in the process make the canyon itself the abutments of the dam. Think of it this way. If the dam were books on a shelf, the canyon walls are now bookends. It's genius. Ultimately, this curving concrete monolith will be 727ft in height, as tall as a 60 story skyscraper at the top. Its curved crest will be 1,282ft long and 45ft thick. Wide enough for a Nevada Arizona connecting highway. And the dam wall will get thicker as it goes down, reaching a thickness of 660ft at the bedrock. The base of the dam will be between the transverse fault lines on the canyon floor. All of this will bear the compressive stress of up to 440 tons per square foot. And we'll get to other details, including other features like the towers, tunnels, spillways and power plant in a bit. But suffice it to say for now that this proposal is a modern wonder of the world, a true feat of genius in engineering and architecture just waiting to happen. But as we Learned in episode 170, the stock market crashes in 1929. Nonetheless, former Commerce Secretary turned US President Herbert Hoover pushes ahead with construction. One year later, on September 17, 1930, Nevada Governor Fred Balzer and Interior Secretary Ray Wilbur stand before a crowd of spectators at Boulder Junction, or Bracken, just south of Las Vegas, where they ceremoniously lay the first ties and rails to connect the as of yet not so sinful city of 5,000 souls and Black Canyon. Standing in the 103 degree heat, sweating buckets in his three piece suit, Secretary Wilbur drives a spike of Nevada silver into the railway. Afterward, he looks at the spectators and photographers and declares, I have the honor to name this greatest project of all time the Hoover Dam. What? This is the first time the public has ever heard Hoover, not Boulder Dam. And while the President is yet to fall to his future level of disfavor, who names a project after a current seated president, much less before the project has actually been built? Well, over the course of this project, both the name derived from the wrong canyon and the one honoring the soon to be one term president will bounce back and forth. But be it Boulder Dam or Hoover Dam, its name is a question for another day. Right now, the more pressing issue is can Great Depression hit Uncle Sam? Find a company capable of building this colossus in the American Southwest's desert and at the right price point. 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- [27:41]
Greg Jackson
On March 4, 1931, Chief Engineer Raymond Walter is at the Denver office of the Bureau of Reclamation tearing open envelopes containing bids. Only five entities in the nation even dared to try. The first two lack the required $2 million bond, and one bid is at 200 million. Ray and his fellow engineers burst into laughter at that figure. And yes, engineers can laugh. The third bid is 53.9 million, still too high. The fourth is 58.6 million. Ridiculous. Finally, Ray opens the fifth, submitted by a conglomerate called Six Companies. It's at $48,890,955. What? That's only 24 grand over the bureau's own estimates. We have our winner. Historian Michael Hiltzik characterizes Six Companies as a unwieldy contracting consortium. It's made up of, you guessed it, six firms. San Francisco's W.A. bechtel and Oakland's Henry J. Kaiser hold a joint 30%. The Utah Construction Company out of Ogden has 20%. McDonald & Kahn Company out of Los Angeles is also at 20%. Pacific Bridge Company out of Portland, Oregon, makes up 10%. And Morris Knudsen Company out of Boise, Ohio, is the last 10%. Officially, the consortium is created because it's the only way to finance the bond. Unofficially, though, to quote Hiltzig again, Six Companies was a corporate device designed to put Frank Crow to work. Francis, or rather Frank Crow, whom we also met in this episode's opening, is Six Companies Superintendent of construction. Gangly, long limbed, blue eyed, balding and Canadian born, Frank has worked on six dams previously. He's an energetic, hands on, in the trenches leader, but painfully demanding. Yet for all his experience and skill, this project will be unlike any other, even for Frank. The deal is signed on March 11, even with the lowest bid, this nearly $49 million deal is the federal government's largest single construction contract ever. Interior Secretary Ray Wilbur remarks that it is a satisfaction to see this great contract get underway. The Colorado river, instead of being a menace, will now be a great benefit. Six companies Vice President Will Wattis concurs. To quote him now, this dam is just a dam. But it's a damn big dam. Very true. A damn big dam it will be. The contract consists of five key features. Those 1. River diversion. This will require four tunnels through the Black Canyon's walls. Each tunnel will be 56ft in diameter, lined with concrete and approximately 4,000ft long. These tunnels will carry the mighty Colorado's waters, leaving the segment of the canyon where the dam will be built empty. Additionally, temporary coffer dams that is enclosing walls across the canyon floor will ensure the work site remains dry as the foundation is laid for the dam wall and power plant. 2. That concrete arch gravity dam I described earlier. Again, the wall will be 727ft feet in height, while the arc will be 1,180ft long. The radius of curvature will be 500ft. Once it's in place, the river will form a lake known initially as Boulder Dam Lake, but later renamed as Lake Mead in honor of the Bureau of Reclamations Commissioner Elwood Meade. 3. Two spillways like the overflow hole on your bathtub, they're a precaution against an overflowing Colorado spilling over the dam wall. But they'll be a tad bigger than your tub's overflow. Each of the two spillways, one on either side of the dam, will be 50ft in diameter and 600ft deep, connected to two of the former diversion tunnels. Each will be able to handle 200,000 cubic feet per second of water. These two spillways combined could swallow the entire flow of Niagara Falls twice over. Four. The outlet works. This is how the controlled water will reach the other side of the dam and continue downstream. There will be four 395 foot tall intake towers, two on each side of the dam. The Colorado rivers or Lake Mead's waters will enter them, then flow down massive tunnels and penstocks to reach the other side of the dam wall. The water will either exit through the power plant's giant hydroelectricity producer producing turbines or if in excess, through needle valve outlets protected by stony gates. Altogether, this means the river's flow can both produce electricity and be controlled, much as you control the flow of water coming out of your faucet. 5 the U shaped power plant. It'll be made of concrete and structural steel and located at the bottom of the dam wall on the downstream side, obviously where its turbines will welcome that flowing, regulated electricity producing water back into the Colorado River. I know. A huge undertaking. And yet six companies has to hustle. They have a 2,565 day deadline, effectively seven years to complete the project. They have internal deadlines too. Heavily fined if missed. It's a dynamic that will lead to Frank Crow's new nickname. Hurry up Crow and incentivize speed over safety. Let's keep that dangerous dynamic in mind. Speaking of speed, the Hoover administration wants the work starting asap. Amid the Great Depression, they see this as fast employment. A good thought. But that pushes the Boulder Canyon project to begin six months early. And without proper infrastructure like transportation, sanitation or living facilities, that's a problem. As Frank arrives in Las Vegas, Nevada, the base of operations before proper quarters can be built closer to the Black Canyon, he finds thousands of men inquiring in person and via the post about work. Given the lack of accommodations, a shanty town, a Hooverville of sorts, emerges on the outskirts of Vegas. The most famous of these is called Ragtown. Journalists are appalled by the contrast between what they thought the damn site would look like and reality. Frank has his hands full. He begins surveying the topography and shantytowns, knowing that he somehow has to figure out housing for his soon to be thousands of workers and their families. All while actually starting the dam. Sounds like Frank. Hurry up Crow has no time to waste. In April 1931, work on the project and the seven year clock both officially begin. On the housing side, Frank has a new town called Boulder City under construction. It's only 8 miles away from the work site, far closer than 25 mile distant Las Vegas. But that will take a while. And with ragtown's population of 1,400, he also has six companies River Camp getting slapped together. Its initial bunk houses will accommodate 480 men. Meanwhile, the men are excavating, preparing the way for roads and railroads alike. As they do, the blast of dynamite rings from the canyon at all hours. But just as we learned while constructing the transcontinental railroad in episodes 83, 85, Dynamite is a dangerous business. It's late in the afternoon, May 8, 1931. Workmen are laying track for a construction railroad halfway up a black canyon cliff. As usual, the team prepares, then sets off 30 blasts of dynamite. And as expected, the blast sends loose boulders, sand and other bits of earth careening down the cliff. Unfortunately, another crew working at the cliff's bottom didn't hear the blast signal. Watching this in real time, John Page notes that they had given no warning and no chance to get cover. Pl Lesi doesn't even have time to look up as a boulder comes crashing down, sending him flying 50ft. Herman Schmitz suffers a fractured skull and all but loses one ear. With no first aid or medical tint, the injured men are rushed to the Las Vegas hospital in a flat tire damage ambulance. Miraculously, both survive. But this is only one of many accidents and death is not far. Ten days later, a rockfall crushes Andrew Lane and Harry Lane to death. When finally recovered, their bodies are barely recognizable. As the searing month of May gives way to blazing hot June, the second big stage of construction begins. Excavating those four river diverting tunnels that will temporarily reroute the Colorado river through the Black Canyon's walls for the next several years. Again, each will measure 56ft in diameter and 4,000ft in length. They'll also be lined with 3 foot thick concrete. And this will allow the workers to build the curving dam's foundation on the empty canyon's bedrock. This enormous task must be completed by October 1, 1933, or six companies starts paying a $3,000 per day fine. Yikes. Hence, Frank, Hurry up, Crow. Continuing to push the men. Of course, we know from the opening of this episode that a week is soon lost to a strike. But even so, the pace is nothing short of extraordinary. Reclamation Commissioner Elwood Meade is impressed as he reports that those western dirt moving fools are building highways, starting tunnels and laying railroads all at once, but without any mix ups. By early 1932, all four tunnels are in progress. 1200 to 1500 men are involved in tunneling at any given time. And yet the work remains risky. It's an unspecified day, late 1931 or early 1932, and a tunnel crew is starting its shift in the Black Canyon's walls. The men walk through puddles of water alongside jagged edges of earth under the bluish white glow of flickering electric lights. Breathing in, they smell truck exhaust mixed with recently exploded dynamite. Reaching the end of their tunnel, they're met with a rig illuminated by 1500 watt bulbs and overwhelming noise. The tunnel vibrates as men use 10 to 12 foot drill steel to slowly chip away at the andesite greccia that is the type of igneous rock in the area. Unable to hear a word down here, miners signal to nearby nippers to replace doling drill steel on their massive drilling machines called Jumbos. The nippers move fast. Everyone is in constant competition to finish their task first. Finally, the drilling pauses as dynamite cartridges are loaded and tamped down with powder sticks. This is done under floodlights, not the jumbo's lights. The reason for that is to ensure the electrically ignited primers do not go off prematurely. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope the electricians are doing their jobs correctly. One error here and the whole crew is dead. It's a little terrifying. One anonymous miner notes. I've been a miner all my life and I've never seen conditions so bad. Bad. Everyone vacates the tunnel. The ground reverberates as the dynamite explodes. Safety miners, often veterans, stream into the smoky dusty tunnel to inspect the blast sign. They give the all clear. And with that, tractors and electric shovels move in to remove the loose dirt. Everything has gone according to plan. Workers breathe a sigh of relief. And then they get started on the four and a half hour process of drilling, blasting and mucking all over again. Between high voltage electric lines near water dynamite, cave ins and carbon monoxide poisoning, it's fair to say that both accidents and deaths are not a question of if, but when. And the state of Nevada is aware and concerned. Concerned State Mine Inspector A.J. stinson orders six companies to stop using gas based trucks in the tunnels. On November 7th, 1931, Six Companies responds by suing AJ over the next year, Six Companies lawyers and the US Attorney's office argue that Nevada doesn't have jurisdiction. Ultimately, a panel of federal judges sides with six companies as the work continues at its fast first and safety style second pace. But as that court case rages, January 1932 proves a peak month for tunneling. With their ranks swelling, six companies sees 16,000 cubic yards of rock taken away per day. And on January 26th a record 256 linear feet is cleared in 24 hours. To put that in contrast, the Central Pacific's sledgehammer swinging tunnelers who tore through the Sierra Nevada mountains, the name of the transcontinental railroad back in episode 85 initially averaged 10 inches per day. Yeah, tunneling technology has improved remarkably since 1865. The following month, February 1832, flash floods slow the work considerably. One of the tunnelers named Neil Holmes will later recall that there was so much mud you'd wander in there and it would be three and four feet deep in the bottom of them tunnels so that you couldn't pump that much out. So they had to get all the sand and muck and rock in there. To absorb that and then hauled it out with shovels. Nonetheless, the tunneling continues. But it's not just tunneling. Other things are happening. With the dam Project in 1932, railroads linking the concrete platform plant to the dam site are finished. Boulder city is just that, a real city with homes, shops, schools, libraries, fraternal organizations and churches. Specifically, there are Episcopal, Latter day Saint, AKA Mormon, and catholic congregations, and of course, thousands of residents. Yes, things are looking up for the Boulder canyon project's now over 3,000 workers. But none, nothing out here in the desert is quite as up as the gravity defying high scalers. It's an unspecified day, likely in 1932, and the high scalers, as they're known, are dangling on ropes off the edge of the massive cavern walls that will become the Hoover dam. Generally, native Americans, circus performers, or others used to heights or otherwise possessing nerves of steel, they're clearing debris from the canyon walls while hanging hundreds of feet in the air. In doing so, they're removing rocks that could otherwise fall and kill a man. When work begins on the canyon floor, these loose rocks also have to go to make sure the dam wall seals properly. But, you know, I can't explain their work better than high scaler Joe Kyne can. I'll just let him tell you. We tied our rope to a steel in the ground at the top of the canyon wall. We tied our safety belts and our bosun chair on that. We had inch ropes, we had good ropes. They didn't break. That was never any worry. And then as they got frayed and unraveled out, they dropped them down on the ground and burned them. We had an extra rope to tie the jackhammer on, and we tied our steel on, too. We dropped ourselves over, then we slid down to where we wanted to work. Whether it was close or way down, we could move back and forth pretty good with our ropes. Then if you had to go up a little bit, you put a twist around your foot with the rope and slid up. We could sneak up pretty slow with that, but we very seldom had to go up. We used to climb out before the cableways were put up. Once the cableways got got up, they'd go back and forth and they could pick us up and move up and down in all ways. Then we had a big cable ladder, too, that we could go out on. We didn't have expert powder men. We'd done the whole business ourselves. Drilled, loaded the holes and shot barred down Whatever was loose. We'd stick a bar behind it and pry it off. And let it drop down. The engineers would mark it how far back we would wanted to go. Joe loves this job. It pays $5.60 per day and he feels it's one of the safest on the site. Nonetheless, it is in fact quite dangerous. Back in September 1931, poor Jack Salty Russell fell 400ft to his death, leaving his remains smeared across the Black Canyon's Arizona wall. Such are the risks as the high scalers ultimately remove almost 1 million cubic yards of rock. But whether a mucker, a nipper, a miner or a high scaler or something else, 1932 brings another issue to these workmen. The presidential election. Now as we know from episode 173, Herbert Hoover's reelection looks grim. That concerns six companies leaders. The Hoover administration has been good to them. Burt went to bat this year when Congress wanted to slash their funds from $10 million to $6 million. Democratic challenger Franklin Delano Roosevelt doesn't look like an upgrade. So the big six push a company sponsored campaign in Boulder City to re elect the current namesake of their project. Now neither six companies nor Uncle Sam want to concede on any jurisdiction claims over the Boulder Canyon project's Federal Reserve to the state of Nevada. And they fear that allowing the state to handle elections will do that. Thereby opening the door to crackdowns on safety regulations. But from a PR standpoint, they have to let the workers vote. So Clark County, Nevada gets to open a voting office in Boulder city. And despite six companies clear political support of Burt Hoover, 78% of Boulder City residents vote for FDR following his crushing defeat. Burt visits the dam on November 12, 1932. The great engineer, his wife Lou, Interior Secretary Ray Wilbur and other big shots enjoy a two and a half hour tour led by none other than Frank Crow. Two days later on November 14th, the Colorado river is officially rerouted into the tunnels and the first large phase of the Hoover Dam project is complete nearly a year before its deadline. As water pours into tunnel number four, an anonymous worker shouts into the void. She's taking it boys, she's taking it. And as she does, men and machines have already started to dredge the Black Canyon's floor. They're building the first of two massive earthen walls across the whole width of the canyon. This one upstream of the work site which will make sure everything stays dry even if a spring or winter flood proves too much for the four river diverting canyon wall tunnels. That's right, they've started the first of the two temporary coffer dams. A few months pass by February 1933 the first coffer dam is built, the second coffer dam downstream is underway and the high scalers have finished their work. That month is also when President Elect Franklin Roosevelt names his new Secretary of the Interior. The Chicago born free four minded liberal Harold L. Ickes anxious. Lastly, six companies braces to see what Harold's leadership will mean for the Boulder Dam project.
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- [49:36]
Greg Jackson
In April 1933, inspectors proclaim both of the two massive hundreds of wide feet earthen wall coffer dams, one upstream of the work site, the other downstream. Satisfactory. Come hell or high water, this area will remain bone dry. Meanwhile, the workmen have been using dynamite, steel jawed dragline buckets and other tools of the trade excavating the V shaped canyon. Ultimately, they remove more than 500,000 cubic yards of silt in preparation for the dams and the power plant's foundation. But as they remove silt and add filler, the new Interior Secretary of the Roosevelt administration is ready to enter the scene on May 8, 1933, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes makes his first move vis a vis the Hoover Dam. He renames it, or rather restores its old name, the Boulder Dam. According to Harold, the name Boulder Dam is a fine, rugged and individual name. The men who pioneered this project knew it by this name. These men, together with practically all who have any firsthand knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the building of this dam, want it called the Boulder Dam and have keenly resented the attempt to change its name. Honest Herald, as he comes to be known, argues that the Coolidge administration, not the Hoover administration, is responsible for much of the dam's progress. Hmm. Sorry, Honest Harold, but that's not true. Fact is, Harold simply wants Herbert Hoover's name off of this project that FDR is about to inherit. Ah, politics. Back in Washington, Harold is both mitigating worries over another Teapot Dome scandal. You'll want to revisit episode 155 if that doesn't ring a bell. And pestering six companies to begin paying their workers in dollars, not company scrip. Six Companies leaders aren't liking this new Interior Secretary. But in truth, Harold very much wants the Boulder Dam project to succeed. He's just not going to wink at seedy, sordid practices that includes fighting six Companies proclivity for racial discrimination. The new Interior Secretary is none too pleased to find that six Companies has historically avoided hiring black workers. The federal government's original contract with the Big Six stipulated that US Citizens were to be given preference in hiring. Yet this large group of citizens is largely left out, representing less than 1% of the total workforce. Six Companies President Warren Bechtel says he never heard of any refusal to employ colored people. That's interesting, though, considering that black organizations have been protesting the absence of black workers since day one. Harold can't do much on this point due to the restrictive language of six Companies contract. But he attains a small, if meaningful victory within this Jim Crow era. He convinces the Big Six to allow black workers to live in Boulder City. As Six Companies carries on under the bespectacled and scrupulous eyes of Harold Ickes, comes to a legal settlement with Nevada on taxes and loses its president, Warren Bechtel, who, while visiting a dam site in the USSR suffers an unfortunate and early death, ultimately elevating his son Steve and consortium VP Will Wattis to fill his shoes. The excavating is finally completed on June 6, 1933. A steel bucket filled with 16 tons of fresh concrete is lowered to the floor of the Black Canyon on Block J3. Finally, after two years of digging down, it's time to start building up. The sight of concrete structures filling the depths of the canyon is nothing short of incredible. Author Joseph Stevens describes it as some forbidding futuristic metropolis. The asymmetrical concrete columns of the dam reared up from the canyon bottom. They stabbed skyward a phalanx of blank towers mottled by dark water stains and black shadows, but otherwise featureless, inscrutable and cruelly huge. Here and there, pipes, pieces of lumber, cables and bristling clumps of structural steel protruded from the tops and sides of the long oblong blocks. But the overwhelming impression was one of barrenness, bulk and brooding power. This piecemeal approach to laying concrete isn't one of choice, but necessity. If the dam were built in one continuous pour, the internal temperature would be so high that it would take 125 years to cool. Further, the concrete would likely crack, rendering the whole thing useless. So five foot thick blocks are getting stacked on top of each other among honeycomb like pipes to create the jigsaw esque upward movement that Stevens described. In theory, these design notes are easy. But Frank Crow has some serious managing to do on the ground. As he explains in an interview with Fortune magazine, we had 5,000 men in a 4,000 foot canyon. The problem, which was a problem of materials flow, was to set up the right sequence of jobs so the workers wouldn't kill each other off. Indeed, Frank's worst fear of workers getting killed off is realized all too often nonetheless. Frank, hurry up. Crow is holding his pace. In 1934, on July 20 he has his peak workforce with 5251 men working in Boulder City and the Black Canyon. The dam has mostly taken form and is becoming a spectacle, drawing 266,436 tourists that year alone. And by December 4, 1934, the date by which six companies is required to start pouring concrete, 92% of the intake towered tunnel and pipe filled hydroelectric dam is already complete. The next day, December 5th, Frank and his army poured their 3 millionth yard of concrete. Sounds like this behemoth of a project is nearly in the bag. But that doesn't mean that things are any less dangerous or deadly on the work site. It's the night of January 3, 1935. Some 700ft up at the crest of the dam on the Arizona side in form B1 head pipefitter, JW happy Pitts and his signalman Ike Johnson are installing cooling pipe. Happy is hunched over While Ike hollers upward, asking the cableway operator to send more concrete down. The bucket descends slowly, but as it's about to reach the crew, a hoist line noisily snapshot. The container tips to its side and swinging like a pendulum, slams into Happy and Ike. Happy goes flying into the air. His lifeless body flails downward, then crashes into one of the crisscross catwalks 150ft below the dam's crest. Meanwhile, the massive, wildly swinging, out of control concrete bucket slams into the Nevada wall and explodes, spilling concrete all over the riverbed. But what about Ike? It's like he just vanished. But suddenly his colleagues see a faint light flickering below. Scrambling down the ladders, AKA the monkey slides, the men dart toward the light to find that it is Ike, flat on his back, submerged in concrete, with only one free arm, frantically waving a lit match. Whether the swinging bucket swept him up or Ike caught hold of it, or never know. But he was lucky, unlike his dearly departed boss, Happy. In fact, Ike's only injuries are an eye irritated from the lime in the cement and minor bruising. He's back to work 24 hours later. As the deaths continue and injured employees sue six companies, the work nonetheless continues. And on February 1, 1935, the last of the four river diverting tunnels is sealed with a 1-200-ton steel gate. A 400 foot concrete plug follows. Two tunnels will now serve the two spillways. The other two tunnels have been lined with steel and send water to the intake towers. Yes, the mighty Colorado is officially back in the canyon. And more than that, it is for the first time in history, tamed and controlled. Now impounded. The water begins pooling upstream of the dam wall. With space to hold nearly 250 square miles of water. You and I will know this fluctuating oasis as Lake Mead. There are more finishing touches in 1935 and the production of hydroelectric power won't start happening until 1936. But before we get to that and otherwise wrap up. We can't leave 1935 without attending the dam's dedication. And who better to officiate than the President whose New Deal can has carried the funding torch as the Great Depression has rocked the nation and the world. It's the morning of September 30, 1935. Boulder City doesn't have the population it once did. But every resident is downtown lining the sweltering hot streets and cheering as a top down convertible approaches. In it is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He waves his his hat to the crowd as the Motorcade carries him by. From here they continue on, taking the President to the Boulder Dam, where he's driven across the highway that runs across the dam's crest all the way to the Arizona side, before coming back to the big wooden platform by the observation point on the Nevada side. It's now 10:30 in the morning. Dressed in a dark double breasted suit, Franklin makes his way to the podium. Locking his braces and gripping the platform, he looks out at the dam. No words can express the majesty of what he sees as he mutters, I'm speechless. FDR then ad libs a variation of Julius Caesar's famous phrase. I came, I saw, I was conquered. Suddenly, the reverent moment is interrupted as Secretary Harold Ickes drops ahead handful of coins onto the wooden floor. He turns bright red with embarrassment while members of the press corps snicker and some in the crowd cast austere glares. But Franklin doesn't seem to notice. The bespectacled guest of honor looks down at his paper and begins his planned remarks.
- [60:04]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Senator Pittman, Secretary Hickers, governors of the Colorado State, and you especially, who have built Boulder Dam this morning. I came, I saw, and I was conquered. As everyone would be who sees for the first time this great feat of mankind. The transformation wrought here in these years is a 20th century marvel. The people of the United States are proud, proud of Boulder Dam. With the exception of the few who are narrow visioned. People everywhere, people on the Atlantic Sea Board, people in the Middle west and the Northwest, people in the south, must surely recognize that the national benefits which will be derived from the completion of this project will make themselves felt in every one of the 48 states. They know that poverty or distress in a community 2,000 miles away may affect them and equally that prosperity and higher standards of living across a whole continent will help them back home. Today marks the official completion and the dedication of Boulder Dam, the first of four great government regional units. This is an engineering victory of the first order. Another great achievement of American resourcefulness, American skill and American determination. And that is why I have the right once more to congratulate you who have builded Balderdam, and on behalf of the nation to say to you, well done.
- [62:33]
Greg Jackson
Ceremony aside, things become more official on March 1, 1936. That's when Interior Secretary Harold Ickes formally accepts the dam from Frank Crow and the senior members of six companies, the work of 2130 men, more than 5000 of whom were employed and working at the same time in June 1934. They've delivered a 727 foot tall, 1,180 foot long dam wall with a 45 foot wide crest and a 660 foot wide base. Four 395 foot tall intake towers, two spillways and a power plant. The process required excavating 5 point million cubic yards of silt and rock, filling in 1 million cubic yards, pouring 4.4 million cubic yards of concrete and laying several tens of millions of pounds in pipes, gates, valves fittings, reinforced steel, structural steel and other metals. They've delivered this momentous work 2 years, 1 month and 28 days ahead of schedule. All while going less than 2 million over the initial estimated cost for a total bill to uncle Sam of 51.6 million. Not bad. Meanwhile, six companies walks away with a profit somewhere between 10.4 and 18 million. Not bad either. But the cost in human life is significant. Back on May 30, 1935, workmen gathered in the Black Canyon to honor their fallen friends who lost their lives working on the project by raising a memorial to them. It reads they labored that millions might see a brighter day in memory of our fellow men who lost their lives on the construction of this dam. Yet this ceremony didn't mean that death was done. Taking his toll. The last was Patrick Tierney. The 25 year old electrician's helper fell over 300ft from an intake tower on December 20, 1935. Eerily, it was 13 years to the day since his father, J.G. tierney, drowned in the Colorado river while surveying for potential locations for the future dam. He was the second to die for the Boulder Dam project. Thus this father and son duo became mere bookends on the estimated over 100 lives lost to make the desert bloom. And bloom it does. Never will the Imperial Valley, which is also getting its all American canal as a part of this project, worry like it once did about water cities from nearby Las Vegas to 300 mile distant Los Angeles benefit. Countless millions of Southern Californians, Arizonans and Nevadans will lead their lives in the Southwest's desert for the foreseeable future without ever realizing they do so. Because these daring and dying men tamed the Colorado, these millions upon millions of Americans benefit from both its water and as of October 1936, its electricity. That's when Los Angeles starts receiving hydroelectric power from the first operational turbine. And eventually the Colorado's swift waters are churning a total of 17 gigantic turbines at the Boulder Dams power plant. Or should we say the Hoover Dams power plant. On April 30, 1947, the name officially reverts back to being Herbert Hoover's namesake. In 1943, Frank Crow remarked, there's something peculiarly satisfying about building a great dam. You know what you have built will stand for centuries. Nearly a century later, there's every reason to expect Frank's right that the Hoover Dam will likely stand for centuries to come. But as we move from this remarkable feat of engineering, this testament to the American spirit, purchased not only in time and money, but with more than 100 lives and many more limbs, it's only fair to wonder just which of the 1930s many iconic and gargantuan works is in fact the most impressive. Is it the 6.6 million ton Hoover Dam? The 8,981 foot long Golden Gate Bridge? Or perhaps the 1,450 foot tall Empire State Building? I suppose we'll have to withhold our judgment until we've heard all their tales. History that Doesn't Suck is created and hosted by me, Greg Jackson Episode researched and written by Greg Jackson and Riley Ballard Production by Airship Sound design by Molly Theme music composed by Greg Jackson Arrangement and additional composition by Lindsey Graham of Airship for bibliography of all primary and secondary sources consulted in writing this episode, visit htdspodcast.com HTDS is supported by fans@HTDSpodcast.com Membership My gratitude, you kind soul providing funding to help us keep going. Thank you and a special thanks to our patrons whose monthly gift puts them at producer status. Ahmad Chapman, Andy Thompson, Art Lang, Bob Stinnett, Brad Davidson, Bronwyn Cohen, Bruce Hibbert, Carissa Sedlak, Charlie Mages, Chloe Tripp, Christopher Merchant, Christopher Pullman, Dan Gee, David Rifkin, Durante Spencer, Donald Moore, Ellen Stewart, Elizabeth Chris Jansen, El chevioto, Ernie Lomaster G2303 George J. 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