GRAND CANYON
The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largelycontained within the Grand Canyon National Park, one of the first national parks in the United States..The Grand Canyon is 277miles (446 km) long, up to 18 miles (29 km) wide and attains a depth of over a mile (1.83 km) (6000 feet). Nearly two billion yearsof the Earth's geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer afterlayer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. While the specific geologic processes and timing that formed the GrandCanyon are the subject of debate by geologists, recent evidence suggests the Colorado River established its course through thecanyon at least 17 million years ago. Since that time, the Colorado River continued to erode and form the canyon to the point wesee it at today.Before European immigration, the area was inhabited by Native Americans who built settlements within the canyonand its many caves. The Pueblo people considered the Grand Canyon ("Ongtupqa" in Hopi language) a holy site and madepilgrimages to it. The first European known to have viewed the Grand Canyon was García López de Cárdenas from Spain, whoarrived in 1540.
The Hualapai (also spelled Walapai) are a tribe of Native Americans who live in the mountains of northwestern Arizona, UnitedStates. The name is derived from "hwal," the Yuman word for pine, "Hualapai" meaning "people of the tall pine". Their traditionalterritory is a 100 mile (160 km) stretch along the pine-clad southern side of the Grand Canyon with the tribal capital located atPeach Springs. The community is governed by the Hualapai Tribal Council which includes a chairperson, vice-chairperson, andseven other council members. Law enforcement is provided by the Hualapai Nation Tribal Police Department which came intoexistence in 2002. The department consists of a Chief Of Police, Deputy Chief, Criminal Invesigator and 11 sworn, Arizona statecertified Patrol Officers. Fire protection is provided by the BIA and the local volunteer fire department. Alcoholism and obesity aremajor problems among many Native American people, so there are community-wide anti-drug and anti-alcohol efforts. There has
been rapid economic, social, and governmental progress.
•More than 200 new homes have been built recently.
•About 14 miles (23 kilometers) of town curbed.
•An improved community water and sewer system provides infrastructure for future growth.
•300 streetlights were installed in 1999.
HOOVER DAM
Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on theborder between the US states of Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936, and was dedicated onSeptember 30, 1935 by President Franklin Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands ofworkers, and cost over a hundred lives. Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigatedfor their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power.
In 1928, Congress authorized the project. The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium called Six Companies,Inc., which began construction on the dam in early 1931. Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and someof the techniques were unproven.
The torrid summer weather and the lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties.Nevertheless, Six Companies turned over the dam to the Federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years early.Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, and is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally created for workers onthe construction project, about 30 mi (48 km) south of Las Vegas, Nevada. The dam's generators provide power for public andprivate utilities in Nevada, Arizona and California. Hoover Dam is a major tourist attraction.
Soon after the dam was authorized, increasing numbers of unemployed converged on southern Nevada. Las Vegas, then asmall city of some 5,000, saw between 10,000 and 20,000 unemployed descend on it A government camp was established forsurveyors and other personnel near the dam site, this soon became surrounded by a squatter's camp. Known as McKeeversville,the camp was home to men hoping for work on the project, together with their families. Another camp, on the flats along theColorado River, was officially called Williamsville, but was known to its inhabitants as Ragtown. Once construction began, SixCompanies hired large numbers of workers, with more than 3,000 on the payroll by 1932 and with employment peaking at 5,251in July 1934. "Mongolian" (Chinese) labor was forbidden by the construction contract, while the number of blacks employed bySix Companies never exceeded thirty, mostly lowest-pay-scale laborers in a segregated crew.
With most work finished on the dam itself (the powerhouse remained uncompleted), a formal dedication ceremony was arrangedfor September 30, 1935, to coincide with a western tour being made by President Franklin Roosevelt There were 112 deathsassociated with the construction of the dam. Included in that total was J. G. Tierney, a surveyor who drowned on December20, 1922 while looking for an ideal spot for the dam. His son, Patrick W. Tierney, was the last man to die working on the dam'sconstruction, 13 years to the day later. Ninety-six of the deaths occurred during construction at the site. Of the 112 fatalities,91 were Six Companies employees, three were Bureau of Reclamation employees, and one was a visitor to the site, with theremainder employees of various contractors not part of Six Companies. Also not included in the official fatalities number weredeaths from what was recorded as pneumonia. Workers alleged that this diagnosis was a cover for death from carbon monoxidepoisoning, brought on by the use of gasoline-fueled vehicles in the diversion tunnels, and used by Six Companies to avoid payingcompensation claims. A total of 42 workers were recorded as having died from pneumonia; none were listed as having died fromcarbon monoxide poisoning. No deaths of non-workers from pneumonia were recorded in Boulder City during the construction period.
The initial plans for the facade of the dam, the power plant, the outlet tunnels and ornaments clashed with the modern look of anarch dam. The Bureau of Reclamation, more concerned with the dam's functionality, adorned it with a Gothic-inspired balustradeand eagle statues. This initial design was criticized by many as being too plain and unremarkable for a project of such immensescale, so Los Angeles-based architect Gordon B. Kaufmann, then the supervising architect to the Bureau of Reclamation, wasbrought in to redesign the exteriors. Kaufmann greatly streamlined the design, and applied an elegant Art Deco style to the entireproject. Kaufmann designed sculptured turrets rising seamlessly from the dam face and clock faces on the intake towers set forthe time in Nevada and Arizona—the two states are in different time zones, but as Arizona does not observe Daylight SavingTime, the clocks display the same time for more than half the year. At Kaufmann’s request, Denver artist Allen Tupper True washired to handle the design and decoration of the walls and floors of the new dam. True's design scheme incorporated motifs ofthe Navajo and Pueblo tribes of the region.
During the years of lobbying leading up to the passage of legislation authorizing the dam in 1928, the dam was generally referredto by the press as "Boulder Dam" or "Boulder Canyon Dam", notwithstanding the fact that the proposed site had been shiftedto Black Canyon. The Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928 (BCPA) never mentions a proposed name or title for the dam. TheBCPA merely allows the government to "construct, operate, and maintain a dam and incidental works in the main stream of the Colorado River at Black Canyon or Boulder Canyon". When Secretary Wilbur spoke at the ceremony starting the building ofthe railway between Las Vegas and the dam site on September 17, 1930, he named the dam "Hoover Dam", citing a traditionof naming dams after Presidents—though none had been so honored during their terms of office. Wilbur justified his choiceon the ground that Hoover was "the great engineer whose vision and persistence ... has done so much to make [the dam]possible". One writer complained in response that "the Great Engineer had quickly drained, ditched, and dammed the country".
After Hoover's election defeat and the accession of the Roosevelt Administration, Secretary Ickes ordered on May 13, 1933 thatthe dam be referred to as "Boulder Dam". Ickes stated that Wilbur had been imprudent in naming the structure after a sittingpresident, that Congress had never ratified his choice, and that it had long been referred to as Boulder Dam. The name "BoulderDam" failed to fully take hold, with many American using the two names interchangeably and mapmakers divided as to whatname should be printed. In 1947, a bill passed both Houses of Congress unanimously restoring the name to "Hoover Dam”.
LAKE MEAD
Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States. It is located on the Colorado River about 30 miles (48 km) southeast ofLas Vegas, Nevada, in the states of Nevada and Arizona. Formed by water impounded by the Hoover Dam, it extends 112 miles(180 km) behind the dam, holding approximately 28.5 million acre feet (or 9.28 trillion gallons)(35 km³) of water.
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