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Hoover Dam

An old photo of Hoover DamHoover Dam
... is located on the Nevada and Arizona border. Hoover Dam is a major source of flood control, irrigation and electrical power in the Southwest and was, for several years, the largest dam in the world. Hoover Dam is still one of the most interesting attractions in the west and continues to be a major  tourist destination. Even when travelers book last minute holidays, they often include a visit to Hoover Dam in their itinerary.
Driving to the Hoover Dam from the Nevada side takes you down a narrow winding, two-lane road. The dark, rocky canyon walls angle sharply to the bottom of Black Canyon. Hoover Dam in 1999They challenge you as you make hairpin turns along the wall of Black Canyon. In contrast, the approach to Hoover Dam from the Arizona side is not quite as challenging. 
As one enters Black Canyon from the Arizona side you will see the back of Hoover Dam and its intake towers. Currently this is a good time to see the intake towers because the water level is way down. In the past, as shown by the photo on the left from 1999, the water from Lake Mead almost completely covered them.

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Taming the Colorado River
... too thick to drink, too thin to plow ....
Long before there was a Hoover Dam, the Colorado River flowed uninterrupted along its 1,450 mile course from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California. For 12 million years the Colorado relentlessly carved out the Grand Canyon, Marble Canyon and other places along its path. As it cut its  way through deserts, canyons and mountainous plateaus, the Colorado carried with it tons of silt to the lower Colorado and eventually out to the Gulf of Flooding before Hoover DamCalifornia.
Spanish settlers noted the reddish color of its silt and they gave it the name we know it by today, the Colorado River. The muddy Colorado River has also been known by several names other names. In 1540, Hernando de Alarcon sailed to the head of the Gulf of California and later up the Colorado River which he name Rio de Buena Guia, or 'River of Good Guidance'. An ironic name considering that he did not find what he was looking ...

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Flooding in California before Hoover Dam was built... a vengeful and unreliable river ....
Before the Hoover Dam was built, almost every spring the Colorado River flooded the low lying areas along its route. The volume of water would be huge because the Colorado basin drains an area of over 242,000 square miles. The silt that it carried created a huge delta in the Gulf of California. However, in the hot Southwestern summers, the flow of the Colorado River slowed to a trickle. For millions of years this was the natural cycle of the river.

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When areas along the lower Colorado River began to be settled in the late nineteenth century, the inconsistent nature of the river made it anColorado River floods town unreliable source for irrigation. The wanton destruction caused when the river flooded in the spring had a deep impact on the farm lands near and sometimes not so near, its banks.

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In fact, this damage caused so much attention that by the 1920's, it had become necessary and politically expedient to control the flooding along the path of the lower Colorado River, especially in California.
Trying to control the Colorado was not a new idea. Earlier attempts ended in disaster. The most famous disaster had almost completely and forever changed the geography and history of the entire lower Colorado region. To read more about this amazing incident CLICK HERE.

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