186. Hoover Dam
Its builders compared it to the Egyptian pyramids. It was designed to last for millennia, and indeed, it’s likely that the dam—ruins at that point—will still be standing tens of thousands of years from now. It contains enough concrete to run a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York City; its “grout curtain” seals the bedrock beneath up to 150 feet deep. Had water pipes not been run through the concrete as it was poured, it would have taken 125 years to cool. As it is, it continues to slowly harden and strengthen to this day.
From the outset, there was a grandeur about Hoover Dam, a sense of holy-cow-look-at-this-impossible-thing-we’re-building—a monument to the idea that nature is negotiable, always, no matter the cost. Officially, 96 workers died during construction, but that number doesn’t include deaths from heat stroke in temperatures up to 140 degrees. The water captured from the Colorado River irrigated 1,500,000 new acres, with a billion gallons daily going “to wash southern California faces and water southern California lawns.”[1]
Oskar J.W. Hansen, the artist behind the dam’s Art Deco statues, also designed a celestial map in the terrazzo floor of its plaza that pinpoints the dedication date within the span of the 26,000-year Great Year, as the planet’s axis traces a circular path in space.[2] This thing we made, this giant, smooth rock fitted neatly into a canyon, has triggered earthquakes and bent the Earth’s crust toward the south. It is geology.
Links:
Built for Eternity – Elmo Keep, Vice, August 7, 2015
A long, amusing, and immensely satisfying read--yes, this is how magazines sounded 90 years ago: The Story of Hoover Dam – Fortune, September 1933 (US Bureau of Reclamation website)
Hoover Dam – National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, 2026
Where Colorado River no longer meets the sea, a pulse of water brings new life – Ian James, Los Angeles Times, June 23, 2022
Technical astronomical explanation of the star map by Wally Motloch
This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country's 250th anniversary. 250 words on 250 works, from January 1 to December 31, 2026.
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[1] This comes from a 1933 article in Fortune magazine, which includes lines like “There is no hotter or more desolate scene on the Colorado - a turgid stream in a towering furnace of stone, a parching parody of all that the sweet word river has meant to the poets.” Wonderful stuff.
[2] This concept was new to me: the North Pole doesn’t always point to Polaris. At the time of the Egyptian pyramids, it pointed to Thuban. In 12,000 years, it will point to Vega. Wikipedia has a good explanation for the layperson, which also explains why this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.
