Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam is an amazing structure that belongs to the United States. It is a huge concrete dam, the height of which can be compared with a 70-storey apartment building. The Hoover Dam primarily serves to provide electricity to 3 US states, as well as pacify the turbulent flows of the Colorado River and provide water to the population of this district.
Historians claim that the construction of Hoover Dam gave rise to the bustling Las Vegas, which turned from a small quiet village into a developed city.
The first work on the construction of the Hoover Dam began in 1931, during the Great Depression. It took a lot of jobs to build this amazing building, which immediately turned out to be occupied by unemployed Americans, despite the hard work. The severity of the backbreaking work was added by the high air temperature, which reached +50 °C. The work done by the climbers was very dangerous, and people working in drilling wells also suffered from a lack of oxygen and harmful gases. During the entire construction of the Hoover Dam, 96 workers officially died. For this reason, at the entrance to the structure there is a monument dedicated to rock climbers, in the form of a worker hanging from a safety rope, whose head is covered with a helmet, holding a flashlight.
Work on the Hoover Dam was completed in 1936, which was a couple of years earlier than planned. The name of the structure was given in honor of former President Herbert Hoover. At that time, the Hoover Dam building was an architectural marvel. Hoover Dam is the largest power plant in the United States and the largest dam in the entire Western Hemisphere.
At the very peak of the dam, a highway was laid that led from Arizona to the Mexican border. But with the advent of a large number of vehicles, traffic jams began to appear here very often, which influenced the decision to build a bridge across the entire canyon, along which it would be possible to bypass the dam. In 2010, a bridge grew several hundred meters from the dam, which is known as the Hoover Dam Bypass. The bridge has a length of 579 meters and a height of 270 meters, it is presented in the form of a huge arch. Approximately 17,000 vehicles use the bridge every day, which significantly relieved the load on the neighboring highway.
Travelers are attracted to Hoover Dam with great interest. A river flows from one side of the dam, and on the other is the huge Lake Mead, which houses a fascinating recreation area. Here you can do water sports or just lie on the beach under the bright sun.
