Hoover Dam: An American Adventure

by Joseph E. Stevens

Overview

In the spring of 1931, in a rugged desert canyon on the Arizona-Nevada border, an army of workmen began one of the most difficult and daring building projects ever undertaken—the construction of Hoover Dam. Through the worst years of the Great Depression as many as five thousand laborers toiled twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to erect the huge structure that would harness the Colorado River and transform the American West.

Construction of the giant dam was a triumph of human ingenuity, yet the full story of this monumental endeavor has never been told. Now, in an engrossing, fast-paced narrative, Joseph E. Stevens recounts the gripping saga of Hoover Dam. Drawing on a wealth of material, including manuscript collections, government documents, contemporary newspaper and magazine accounts, and personal interviews and correspondence with men and women who were involved with the construction, he brings the Hoover Dam adventure to life.

Described here in dramatic detail are the deadly hazards the work crews faced as they hacked and blasted the dam’s foundation out of solid rock; the bitter political battles and violent labor unrest that threatened to shut the job down; the deprivation and grinding hardship endured by the workers’ families; the dam builders’ gambling, drinking, and whoring sprees in nearby Las Vegas; and the stirring triumphs and searing moments of terror as the massive concrete wedge rose inexorably from the canyon floor.

Here, too, is an unforgettable cast of characters: Henry Kaiser, Warren Bechtel, and Harry Morrison, the ambitious, headstrong construction executives who gambled fortune and fame on the Hoover Dam contract; Frank Crowe, the brilliant, obsessed field engineer who relentlessly drove the work force to finish the dam two and a half years ahead of schedule; Sims Ely, the irascible, teetotaling eccentric who ruled Boulder City, the straightlaced company town created for the dam workers by the federal government; and many more men and women whose courage and sacrifice, greed and frailty, made the dam’s construction a great human, as well as technological, adventure.

Hoover Dam is a compelling, irresistible account of an extraordinary American epic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780806122830
Publisher:	University of Oklahoma Press
Publication date:	09/15/1990
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	340
Sales rank:	563,869
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

Joseph E. Stevens, a graduate of Princeton University, lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His first book, Hoover Dam: An American Adventure, was published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1988. It received the Western Writers of America Spur Award, the John H. Dunning Prize of the American Historical Association, and the W. Turrentine Jackson Prize of the Western History Association.

Table of Contents

Hoover Dam: An American Adventure is a pure marvel of scholarship and storytelling—history in the grand style.
—(P.H. Watkins, Editor, Wilderness)

Editorial Reviews

Hoover Dam was the supreme engineering feat of its time (1931-1935), a triumph of American ingenuity and technology. More than half a century later, even with bigger and more sophisticated dams, it remains the benchmark, the granddaddy of big dams, yet this is the first full story of Hoover Dam from conception through construction to completion. Stevens has written a riveting history that reads like a novel; he captures our attention at the beginning and holds it throughout. Here is a powerful evocation of Depression times, of shantytowns in the desert, of hazardous working conditions. Stevens shows us men working in superheated tunnels permeated with carbon monoxide and daredevil scalers high on the canyon walls. We meet the chief field engineer Frank Crowe, who got the project completed two years ahead of schedule; officers of the Six Companies who gambled on the feasibility of building the dam and won; Sims Ely, dictator of the government town, Boulder City; and much of the labor force. Stevens lays to rest the lore that workers are buried in concrete; while the accident rate was high, bodies were always recovered. Superb Americana. Photos. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This fine monograph about the building of Hoover Dam tells the story from design through construction and opening of the massive structure. Stevens successfully integrates the engineering history with the social history of the work force, persuasively arguing for the importance of the dam in transforming the Southwest and Southern California. Thorough research and brisk writing keep the narrative well-paced and interesting to general readers. Photos are incorporated within the text. The only fault is the book's uncritical view of the intensive development of western rivers. Readers might wish to contrast Stevens's celebratory picture of dam builders with Donald Worster's pessimistic view ( Rivers of Empire , LJ 2/1/86). James W. Oberly, Univ. of Wisconsin, Eau Claire

Library Journal

Novelist Auchincloss presents selections from the diaries of Philip Hone and George Templeton Strong, adding biographical details and pairing entries with relevant Currier and Ives illustrations. Elegantly produced for--as the jacket copy asserts-- buff A history of an extraordinary effort--the hazards faced by work crews, political battles, and violent labor unrest. A reprint of the fine 1988 original. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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