Album pages not attached to album cover.
The vision for a dam on the Colorado River began as early as 1902 with
the establishment of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. In 1918 the Bureau of
Reclamation recommended construction of a dam in the Boulder Canyon section of
the river on the Arizona-Nevada border. The seven Colorado River Basin states
signed the Colorado River Compact in November 1922, which eventually led to the
1928 Boulder Canyon Project Act. This act was signed into law by President
Calvin Coolidge in December 1928 and the Boulder Canyon Project Act was
declared effective in June 1929. The dam project was bid and the Six Companies,
Inc., was awarded the contract in March 1931. Construction commenced soon
after. The river was diverted around the dam site in November 1932 and the
first concrete was poured in June 1933. In early 1935 the dam began impounding
water, creating Lake Mead. The dam was completed later that year and dedicated
in September 1935. Hydroelectric power generation began in October 1936. In
1947 the dam was renamed Hoover Dam in honor of President Herber Hoover. The
final power generator was installed in 1961. Hoover Dam today is maintained and
operated by the Bureau of Reclamation. (This information was abstracted from a
chronology of the history of Hoover Dam on the Bureau of Reclamation's Hoover
Dam web site
The Hoover Dam Construction Photograph Album contains 224 black and white, mostly 8x10, photographic prints documenting the construction of Hoover Dam on the Colorado River on the Arizona-Nevada Border between August 1931 and October 1934. Depicted are photographs of the dam site at the beginning of construction, preparation of the site, and construction of the dam, spillway, intake towers, cofferdams and diversion tunnels, and hydroelectric infrastructure. The collection also contains photographs of construction workers in their company mess hall and the company store; portraits of Charles A. Shea, director of construction for the Six Companies; and a composite photograph of the officials of the Six Companies. The photographer(s) and the compiler of the album are not known.
The album is organized into two groups of photographs. The first group of 27 photographs, which starts with the second photograph in the album, contain dates and captions. The second group of 196 images are dated and arranged chronologically.
Collection is open for research.
Photocopying of images from the album to be done by University Archives staff.
Hoover Dam Construction Photograph Album (P 260), Oregon State University Archives, Corvallis, Oregon.
Collection was transferred to the University Archives from OSU's Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering in 2006.
Album pages reordered chronologically and interleaved with acid-free tissue paper.
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