Hoover Dam

Emily Bristor

August, 1999

Background: I stopped in Las Vegas on my vacation this summer, because I'd never been there and because it's kind of on the way between here (Phoenix) and Lake Tahoe, which was my final destination. I'm not a map-reader unless I have to be... my vacations tend to be leisurely drives, at my own pace, doing what I want when I feel like it with few restrictions on when I'm supposed to be where. So who needs a map? General directions are plenty, and I'll get there when I do.

Lots of people knew I was going to Vegas from Phoenix. Nobody thought to mention that I'd have to drive over Hoover Dam to do it, though. And the dam was one of the visual highlights of the trip, Lake Tahoe and surrounding mountains notwithstanding. (Well, I am something of an ex-electrician, after all, and now I'm an engineer, so one might presume I'd be into the geeky stuff. Besides, my camera is lousy for taking landscape pictures.)

And so without further ado, here are my favorites of my pics from Hoover Dam.

I don't know if this guy is called "Winged Victory," but maybe he is....

Normally, power lines decrease the beauty and meaning of a picture. In this case, though, I think they add a lot. Hoover Dam was built to keep the lower Colorado River from flooding, and to provide water to the Southwest United States; power was an afterthought. But it's certainly one of the dam's most important functions. The power lines in these pictures symbolize electricity for much of the Southwest, from Arizona and California, to Utah and Nevada and I don't know where-all.

The dam was built during the Depression. It opened in 1936 (ahead of schedule and under budget). Poverty was so widespread during the Depression that the U.S. government hired all types of workers to do all types of work. Since there was no disposable income, nobody was buying art; it's hard enough to make a living as an artist in a good economy, but when the economy goes bust, artists literally starve. And so, along with the drillers, the hackers and hewers of rocks, the truck drivers, pick-wielders, concrete-pourers, wooden-form-makers, cooks, engineers, builders, and the guys who hung down the canyon walls on ropes pulling away bits of loose rock (did you know those were the guys who invented hard hats? true!), they hired artists. Hoover Dam is a stunning example of infrastructure as art. It's all Art Deco! The bannisters, railings, ceilings, columns... it's beautiful.

Someplace around here there's an entrance. I got lost coming outside after the tour, so I'm not sure where it is. Those diagonal towers really are at that frightening angle. Cool, huh? They're like that so that the cables coming from almost directly underneath can transition to near-horizontal as they angle up across the street, where they horizontalize nicely to distribute the power to wherever it's going.

This is the same stuff as the previous picture, but from a way different angle. That blue splotch at the base of the hills on the left is Lake Mead. The big white vertical thing just behind the diagonal tower is... duh... the dam. OK, I'm weird, but I think it's cool that the main road that goes from western Arizona to Las Vegas goes right over the top of Hoover Dam. The river is the border between Arizona and Nevada at that point. I took these pictures from the Nevada side.

This is the view downstream. See the little gray rectangle to the right of the river, at the bottom of the picture? The tour goes down there (no, there's an elevator). That little gray bit is about thirty feet wide. We're waaaaay high up here.

I turned a little to the left to get this picture. You can get a sense of scale by looking at the three vehicles down there, just in front of the shadows.

There are those vehicles again! This picture was taken while I was on the public tour. I got there too late to sign up for one of the hard-hat tours. Rats. Next time for sure!

Here's one of the dozen or so places where newly-generated power leaves the building. Electrical types will note that this is the C phase of 3-phase power. This thing is much bigger than this picture gives it credit for. Try this: see the black rectangles above the W? They're about 2 1/2 inches tall.

This is looking up from the same spot.

Sorry, couldn't resist. This shot was taken out the car window after I left the dam. I bet Bobcat Goldthwait has stayed there! (If you don't get it, and you can handle disturbing comedy, go rent Shakes the Clown at your video store. One copy I saw had a bit of a review on the box: "The Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies." ) There are so many possibilities for weird scenarios about the Clown Motel that I'm practically speechless. Make up your own, please!