Hoover Dam was built between the years 1931 and 1936 in the midst of the Great Depression.
Planning for the dam commenced years earlier during the administration of President Warren G. Harding.
The government official most responsible for the initial oversight was Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover.
President Calvin Coolidge signed the legislation that paid for the dam… four months before Herbert Hoover was inaugurated to replace him as president.
Planning and land negotiations took place during Hoover’s presidency, and the dam was to be named after him. But construction never commenced while Hoover was in office. He lost reelection in 1930 to Franklin Roosevelt.
The dam was built during FDR’s presidency. When completed, the project was called Boulder Dam.
Hoover wasn’t invited to the dedication ceremony.
An act of Congress in 1947 renamed it Hoover Dam.
The project was completed five years ahead of schedule.
Over 20,000 men worked on the massive dam. 96 of them died during its creation. The odds of perishing on the job were roughly 1 in 220.
The first recorded death took place on December 20, 1921, long before the actual construction began. A member of a survey crew drowned in a flash flood.
His name was J.G. Tierney.
The last death connected with the dam occurred on the exact same day 14 years later - December 20, 1935.
A worker fell to his death from one of the huge intake towers.
His name was Patrick Tierney.
He was J.G. Tierney’s only son.
Father and son died on the same day 14 years apart.
A plaque bearing their names is interred near the dam.
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