Huge Hoover Dam in Las Vegas

Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, and is located near Boulder City, Nevada. Originally called Boulder Dam, this engineering marvel was re-named for Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the United States. In 1935, Hoover Dam was the largest in the world and although long since surpassed it is still an amazing structure and a marvel of engineering – a huge, curving wall of plain concrete 660 feet thick at the base and 726 feet high set between the vertical walls of Black Canyon, accompanied by strangely-angled pylons, cables, power generating plants and other machinery. Its 17 generators produce 4 to 5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. That\’s enough power to supply a half million homes for one year, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, the agency responsible for maintaining and operating Hoover Dam. By the end of 1992, upgrading on the dam’s massive generators increased the original nameplate capacity from 1,345 megawatts to slightly more than 2,000 megawatts.

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