While on vacation in Las Vegas last week, I saw the Blue Man Group, Hershey’s Chocolate World and went on a once-in-a-lifetime tour of the Hoover Dam.
I booked the tour through Grayline Tours, and saw the following:
- Ethel M/Mars Chocolate Factory and Botanical Cactus Gardens
- Lake Mead “Desert Princess” boat tour
- Hoover Dam tour inside (conduits and generators)
- Hoover Dam tour from top
The Hoover Dam took 5,000 workers and 5 years to build in the middle of the Depression.
It was the largest construction in history at the time, and still looks like it was built yesterday.
The dam was built primarily for water resource management, with the electrical generation a bonus. The electrical production paid off the dam project by 1986.
Hoover Dam – view from “Desert Princess” boat on Lake Mead
Hoover Dam – 7×130 MW Generators (~1 GW per side totaling 2 GW, supplying half of region’s electrical needs)
Hoover Dam – view from top of dam towards Colorado River showing concrete bridge, which took 9 years to build
W: Hoover Dam