Hoover Dam vs. Boulder Dam

Hoover Dam and Boulder Dam, where are they? Most people believe Hoover Dam to be in Nevada and Boulder Dam to be in Colorado but in fact they are the same dam an it’s located on the state line between Nevada and Arizona. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century a raging Colorado River wrecked havoc in southern California and Arizona and although the Department of the Interior knew we needed to build a dam to control it the question was where? The location had to have the right geological make-up, be feasible in size, accessible to man and machine and have enough land around it to contain a massive man made lake. Building this massive dam was a huge endeavor but without it a large portion of our fertile farm lands would remain unmanageable.

A dam would unburden the rich farm lands of southern California and Arizona from the uncontrollable Colorado River’s intermittent floods and droughts. These surges of nature not only took out crops but sometimes took everything a farmer owned, homes and outbuildings included. In 1905 the Colorado River breaks into the Imperial Valley of southern California causing a flood so severe it created a 150 square mile inland sea for 2 years. The sea was so grand they named it the Salton Sea, many people have heard of the Salton Sea but few know where it lies. Today, no longer having the mass it once did, it is a lake. This event made it obvious to everyone that in order to control the Colorado River a great dam would have to be built.

Boulder Canyon was the original location for what would become the largest dam in the world, the Hoover Dam. After choosing the location in 1928 congress signed the Swing-Johnson bill which eventually became the Boulder Dam Project Act. Before construction began another location was chosen about 30 miles south at Black Canyon. This new location was more advantageous in all aspects: it was more accessible for roads and railways, geological conditions were better, bedrock depth was less and a smaller dam would provide the same size reservoir. However, it was already funded as the Boulder Canyon project and began with the name Boulder Dam.

Soon after construction began Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur ordered that the dam that would now be built in Black Canyon was to be called Hoover Dam. The name was made official by a Congressional Act of February 14, 1931. After President Hoover left office the name varied, some called it Hoover dam, some the Boulder Dam Project and some just Boulder Dam. President Roosevelt dedicated it September 30, 1935 as Boulder Dam supposedly because the Secretary of the Interior at that time Harold L. Ickes did not like Mr. Hoover. The name became so confusing that it took an act of congress in 1947 to officially name it Hoover Dam once again.

The house resolution in 1947 that was introduced for this read:

"Herbert Hoover, while Secretary of Commerce in 1922, presided as the representative of the Federal Government over two score meetings of the representatives of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming for the formulation of the Colorado River Compact. He had a major part in bringing the States into agreement. This compact, signed November 24, 1922, made construction of the dam possible by allocating the waters of the river system between the upper and lower Colorado River Basin, settling a 25-year old controversy. The Boulder Canyon Project Act, enacted December 21, 1928, when Mr. Hoover was President-elect, ratified the compact and authorized construction of a dam in Black Canyon or Boulder Canyon, leaving to the Secretary of the Interior the choice of sites. It also laid upon him and the Secretary of the Interior extraordinary responsibilities.
As President, Herbert Hoover took an active part in settling the engineering problems and location of the dam in Black Canyon; was required by the Project Act to obtain power and water contracts adequate to assure some $200,000,000 of revenues before construction was begun; settled the difficult and controversial questions involved in the allocation of the power, and made the revenue contracts which Congress required; and proclaimed the Boulder Canyon Project Act to be in effect on June 25, 1929. This Act ratified the Colorado River compact, which Mr. Hoover had signed 7 years before, and subjected all operations of the Boulder Canyon project to that compact. He subsequently reported to Congress, through Secretary Wilbur, compliance with its mandate that this project be built on a self-liquidating basis; Congress made the necessary appropriations (in acts which five times named the dam in his honor); the construction contracts were signed under his administration, and when he left office construction had been pushed to a point where it was more than a year ahead of schedule.
After Mr. Hoover left office, the Interior Department, for reasons that need not be referred to in detail here, avoided the use of the name "Hoover Dam" where possible, and used the names "Boulder Canyon Dam" or "Boulder Dam."
After hearing testimony relative to the need for clarifying the present situation with regard to the name of this dam, it is apparent to this committee that affirmative legislative action by Congress is desirable.
It is particularly timely that this measure honoring Mr. Hoover should come to the floor of the House at a time when he is completing the second of his great humanitarian missions for President Truman in the relief of world-wide suffering."

This resolution passed and one month later in April of 1947 the United States Senate passed their resolution and it was signed by President Truman restoring the name of the Boulder Canyon Project to Hoover Dam once and for all.

The Senate resolution read:

"Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That the name of Hoover Dam is hereby restored to the dam on the Colorado River in Black Canyon constructed under the authority of the Boulder Canyon Project Act, approved December 21, 1928 (45 Stat.1057), and referred to as Hoover Dam in the Act approved February 14, 1931 (46 Stat.1146); in the Act approved April 22, 1932 (47 Stat. 118); in the Act approved July 1, 1932 (47 Stat. 535); in the Act approved July 21, 1932 (47 Stat. 717); and in the Act approved February 17, 1933 (47 Stat. 845). Any law, regulation, document or record of the United States in which such dam is designated or referred to under the name of Boulder Dam shall be held to refer to such dam under and by the name of Hoover Dam.
Approved April 30, 1947.
Many of the workers hated President Hoover because they blamed the great depression on him. Even today many of the old timers still call it Boulder Dam, they call the city built for the dam worker’s Boulder City, they eat at the Boulder Dam Hotel and visit the Boulder dam Museum. If you are interested in seeing and learning more try going on the Hoover Dam Fun Tours “Ultimate Dam VIP Tour”, it is the only tour available that visits all of these places. Hoover Dam or Boulder Dam, it is truly a civil engineering wonder.