For years my husband has wanted to tour the Hoover Dam with the family. So last week we packed up the kids, refused to tell them where we were going, and set off another road trip. It was better than I expected. The Hoover Dam, originally named the Boulder Dam, is an engineering marvel of the 20th Century and a testament to the great things the country was able to accomplish even in the depths of the Great Depression. The top of the dam is open for exploration and you can walk across and look over both sides and view all of the cool dam parts on the Arizona and Nevada sides and how the dam was carved into the canyon. You can stand in the middle of the dam and straddle two states and be in two time zones. After checking out the topside we purchased the Power Plant tour and traveled down several hundred feet inside to the Nevada side power plant and saw several of he huge water turbine generators in action. The generators are huge and heavy and the generator room still uses the two original 300 Ton lift capacity cranes that were installed in the 1930's. Throughout the dam there are incredible 1930's Art Deco design details and other hints of a bygone era. Overall the dam tour has a lot of fascinating information and history and can appeal to geeks and kids of all ages.
The Hoover Dam spans the Colorado River in Black Canyon between Arizona and Nevada, some 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas Nevada. Constructed in the 1930s, the concrete arch-gravity structure was intended to prevent flooding as well as provide much-needed irrigation and hydroelectric power to arid regions of states like California and Arizona. It was originally known as Boulder Dam, but was renamed in 1947 in honor of Herbert Hoover, who as U.S. secretary of commerce and the 31st U.S. president proved instrumental in getting the dam built. At 726 feet high and 1,244 feet long, Hoover Dam was one of the largest man-made structures in the world at the time of its construction, and one of the world’s largest producers of hydroelectric power.
http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/
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