9337

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9337
• Author: Colorado River Water Users Association.
• Title: The Colorado River of Many Returns.
• USFW Year: 2001.
• USFW - Doc Type: Coachella, California.
• Copyright Material: NO

NEVADA

he Colorado River is a constant. The river brought life to one
of our nation's last frontiers. The river embodies life in
providing our most precious resource. The river is the essence
of pristine beauty and yet capable of wreaking havoc. The river has
shaped destinies, and one place that serves as a testimonial to its
ability to shape destinies is
Las Vegas, Nevada.
The term "Las Vegas" was
commonly applied by the Spanish to a meadow or other green and
fertile area. For centuries the Paiute
tribes made the Las Vegas Valle, i?
surrounded by mountain range,
their home. Water flowed freely
from three artesian wells in the f
western part of the valley, creating u
forest of mesquite trees, willows and
greasewood. By the mid-1800s, the
"Old Spanish Trail" had become the
route of choice for missionaries,
traders, emigrants and explorers heading from southern Utah to
Los Angeles. Las Vegas established itself as a regular watering place
for myriad travelers.
It was this abundance of water that resulted in Las Vegas being
designated as the critical link in the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt
T ? S
Lake City railroads. Water drove the steam locomotives and Las Vegas
was the perfect location to replenish the railroad water cars. On May
2, 1905, the railroad company formed the Las Vegas Land and Water
Company and on May 15, 1905, started auctioning off the lots that
began the town of Las Vegas. The extreme conservatism of the water
company, with regard to absolute control of nature's most precious
resource, was in constant conflict with the ambitions of pioneer
residents for growth and development. This struggle lasted nearly 50
years, encompassing two world wars, the Great Depression, the advent
of legalized gaming and the construction of Hoover Dam.
In March of 1922, Herbert Hoover, then-Secretary of
Commerce and chairman of the Colorado River Commission of the
United States, arrived in Las Vegas heralding the reality of the "dam"
project. In November 1922, six of the seven Colorado River Basin
states signed the Colorado River Compact, dividing the river into
upper and lower basins and allocating the amount of water for each
basin. Hoover Dam, the Bureau of Reclamation facility that would
create Lake Mead, would not be completed for another 13 years, and
the distribution system that would bring river water from Lake Mead to
Las Vegas would not come on line for an additional 50 years. However,
the building of the dam and the signing of the compact were the two
events that forged the relationship between this railroad-stop and the
mighty Colorado River.
By 1930, the "Roaring" 20s were past and the Great
Depression was at hand. While most of the United States still was
recovering from the stock market crash in 1929, a building boom was
starting in Las Vegas. As 1930 ended, a Las Vegas newspaper reported
"no matter what is going on around the rest of the nation, there is no
depression in Las Vegas." The Bureau of Reclamation opened bids for
the construction of the dam and power plant on March 31, 1931 and
awarded contracts on a low bid of $48,890,999 to Six Companies Inc.
The first concrete was poured at the dam site June 6, 1933.
The dam started impounding the waters of the Colorado River
for the formation of Lake Mead February 1, 1935. The recreational
possibilities of the lake, long dreamed about by Las Vegas civic leaders,
AN ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION MARVEL, HOOVER DAM, THE LARGEST
ON THE COLORADO RIVER, FORMS LAKE MEAD.