Cold Open

It’s December 20th, 1921, on the Colorado River, the border between Nevada and Arizona.

A small, flat barge rocks in the churning waters as it heads downstream. Among the men clinging to its wooden sides is John Gregory Tierney, a 36-year-old surveyor. 

John struggles to keep his balance as the river surges through canyons of orange rock. He is surprised that the water levels are this high. It hasn’t rained in the region for days, and the land beyond the towering banks of the river is a dry and dusty swath of the American Southwest. In fact, a need for irrigation is partly what brings John and his crew to this area. They are searching for the perfect spot to build a dam, one which will control the flow of the Colorado River, providing hydroelectric power and irrigation for farming, and limiting the river’s perilous floods.

John believes they are nearing the ideal site, a place where the narrow river widens into a canyon. It was once known as “Devil’s Gate,” and John can see why. The Black Mountains loom menacingly over the water on either side, casting deep shadows over the barge.

John manages to resist the current long enough to moor his boat at the riverside. He hopes to set up camp nearby so his team can survey the area. 

But suddenly, the river's roar grows louder. John looks upstream and sees a rush of water surging toward them. It must be a flash flood. So John shouts out a warning to his crew. They leap off the barge onto the shore, but before John can join them, the barge is ripped from its moorings and carried helplessly away on the rapids.

John can’t control the boat in the surging waters. A huge wave claps into the barge and flips it upside down.

John is thrown into the churning water and disappears from sight. 

John Tierney’s body will never be found. He will come to be known as the first man to die in the construction of the Hoover Dam. But he won’t be the last. This unprecedented feat of engineering will prove a disastrous undertaking for its construction crew. But the work will continue unabated, and, more than a decade after John’s death, it will reach an important milestone when the first bucket of concrete is poured on site on June 6th, 1933. 

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world. 

Today is June 6th, 1933: The First Concrete is Poured at the Hoover Dam.

Act One: Strike

It’s August 7th 1931, ten years after John Gregory Tierney drowned in the Colorado River.

Four miles downriver from where John disappeared, engineer Frank Crowe rises from his camp bed. He dresses quickly, donning a wide-brimmed hat to shade him from the desert sun, before he heads out of his tent into a large construction site.

It’s been three years since the Hoover Dam was given the go-ahead by Congress, and Frank is the man entrusted with the ultimate vision for the project. But that vision is still confined to his intricate blueprints. For now, laborers are busy with preliminary work, diverting the river by digging tunnels in the bedrock, and building a new town nearby for the thousands of men who will be needed to construct the dam. The settlement will be called Boulder City. Until it's finished, though, Frank’s laborers must live in shantytown-like camps in the desert. The men work long hours for little pay in 120 degree heat - all under Frank’s constant watchful eye. 

As morning breaks and work begins, Frank looks out over the rushing Colorado River and marvels that somehow he is supposed to tame it. Frank has taken charge of major construction projects in 17 different Western States, re-shaping river beds and creating reservoirs. He is known for his obsession with efficiency. While working for the Federal Bureau of Reclamation, he pioneered the use of new building methods and new equipment. But this Colorado River project is not progressing fast enough for Frank’s liking. He promised the US Government that his dam would cost about 49 million dollars and take seven years to build. Now, though, he worries about how much time and money has already been spent. 

Mulling over these concerns, Frank turns away from the river and marches through the site. The air rings to the sound of chisels on rock. There are hundreds of men here, chipping away at the sheer cliffs that surround the river. Frank pauses, watching them for a moment before he reaches a decision to cut the wages of the least skilled tunnel diggers. He gathers his workers and tells them the bad news.

He doesn’t expect the men to be happy about it. But he fully expects work to go on as before. And Frank has good reason to be confident.

The Great Depression is only getting worse. And as the national unemployment rate steadily climbs toward 25 percent, thousands of men have flocked to this construction site looking for work. The conditions are dangerous. Frank’s workers risk heat exhaustion, carbon monoxide poisoning, and many other hazards. But that doesn’t seem to put them off. So, Frank believes they need these jobs too much to complain about a pay cut. 

But it turns out his calculations are wrong. Just hours after his announcement, all activity on site comes to a halt. The entire workforce is fed up with low pay and unsafe conditions. So they’ve all agreed to go on strike until Frank makes some changes: they want the original pay of the tunnel workers restored, they want ready access to clean water, they want modern flush toilets, and access to ice to ease the crushing heat they face every day.

The men don’t think these demands are unreasonable. But the strike enrages Frank. He’s already worried about falling behind schedule and the strike will only make things worse. He rails against the workers, describing them in the press as “malcontents” and insisting he will not give in to a single demand. 

With their boss proving unsympathetic, the striking workers turn to the U.S. Government for help. They appeal to William Doak, Secretary of Labor, to intervene in the dispute. But Doak refuses to even acknowledge their concerns.

In the end, the strike lasts only a week. Then, desperate for wages and with no support to call on, the dejected workers vote to return to work. None of their main demands have been met, but they do win two small concessions. Frank promises not to cut wages again and he speeds up construction on Boulder City so that workers will eventually have real homes to live in for the rest of the project. 

But the unsafe conditions on site remain.

Over the next two years, more than 8.5 million pounds of dynamite are used to widen the canyon and blast out the tunnels needed to divert the river around the construction site. The original path of the river then dries up, allowing laborers to dig over 40 feet into exposed riverbed to reach solid rock beneath. Meanwhile, suspended by ropes, other workers known as “high-scalers” climb down the walls of the canyon to remove loose rock with explosives and jackhammers. 

It’s all dangerous work and dozens die in on-site accidents. But their sacrifice allows Frank to make rapid progress, and soon he will reach an important milestone ahead of schedule. Two years after the laborers’ strike, the job of diverting the Colorado River will finally be complete, and the time will come for the Hoover Dam to make the leap from Frank’s blueprints into concrete reality.

Act Two: Concrete 

It’s the morning of June 6th, 1933, at the Hoover Dam construction site on the Colorado River, two years after work began.

The project’s General Superintendent, Frank Crowe, watches on approvingly as a car-sized bucket of concrete is hoisted through the air by a crane. Below him, what was once the site of the Colorado River is now a dry and rocky scar in the earth. At the bottom of this manmade gorge, framed with reinforced timber, the first mold is ready to receive its concrete. 

The project is now 18 months ahead of schedule. Frank is obsessed with completing the dam as quickly as possible. But excavating the canyon and diverting the river were only the preliminary steps. Building the dam itself will pose the greatest challenge. 

Frank has made smaller dams before, but the Hoover Dam is so big that he knows it has to be approached differently. Concrete heats as it cures and so much of it is needed here that if the dam were built with one continuous pour, it would take over a century for it to cool. So, Frank has devised a plan to pour the concrete bit by bit. His team has constructed individual molds - blocks five feet high and up to 50 feet square. Stacked on top of each other and filled with concrete, these will build up the dam layer by layer. To accelerate the cooling process, pipes filled with refrigerated river water will run through the wet concrete. Once it sets, these pipes will then be filled with grout, further strengthening the concrete around them. This method should work, but Frank knows that nothing like it has been tried on such a scale before.

So, Frank is nervous as he watches the crane deposit the first eight cubic yard bucket of concrete into its mold. As soon as the concrete slushes out, seven men, called “puddlers”, leap into action, stamping and patting the concrete into place with their boots and shovels. By the time the puddlers are done, the next steel bucket is already on its way.

Frank is building what’s called an arch-gravity dam. It combines the characteristics of two classic dam types. Like a gravity dam, it will use its own enormous weight to hold back the water. But like an arch dam, it will curve at the top, presenting a convex face to the river and directing most of the immense water pressure against the solid rock walls of the canyon. This is the first structure of its kind, but Frank believes it will be strong enough to stand up to the violent flow of the Colorado River.

All told, 4 million cubic yards of concrete will be needed to complete the dam. So, Frank continues to drive his workers on at a furious pace, with little regard for their comfort or safety. And with the Great Depression only getting worse, the laborers at the dam have less leverage than ever. They know that good jobs are at a premium and don’t dare complain about their work or living conditions.

Thankfully though, Boulder City has now been completed at last. The laborers’ town consists of communal dormitories for men, small cottages for families, and an enormous mess hall which serves 6,000 meals a day. But the hastily-erected stucco buildings are derisively dubbed “dingbat houses”, and are not considered much of an improvement over the shanty towns the workers lived in before. Rules in the town are strict too. Las Vegas may only be twenty miles up the road, but it's a world away from Boulder City. Any suggestion of involvement in gambling, drinking or prostitution in Boulder City will see a worker immediately fired and expelled. But despite these restrictions, laborers still flock to the dam construction site in hope of work, and Boulder City continues to expand with its layout changing so rapidly that it’s common for a man to come home from a long day of work and walk into the wrong house. 

With such a large and mostly docile workforce, construction of the Hoover Dam continues ahead of schedule. The project is vast, though, and concrete pouring will continue almost two years. By the time it's finished, the structure will tower 726 feet above the bedrock, making it the tallest dam in the world. Engineer Frank Crowe will be widely praised for driving the complex project forward so efficiently. But that incredible speed will come at a terrible price. And for one family especially, the construction of the Hoover Dam will be forever marked with tragedy.

Act Three: Dedication

It’s September 30th, 1935, two years after the first concrete was poured for the Hoover Dam.

A temporary stage has been constructed on the curved roadway at the top of the dam. There, President Franklin D. Roosevelt leans against a lectern and addresses the crowd. It’s 102 degrees at this dusty, hilly border between Nevada and Arizona, but nevertheless, ten thousand people have gathered to hear the President’s speech. 

Roosevelt praises the incredible feat of engineering he stands upon. In his eyes, the dam has tamed the Colorado River, and transformed the surrounding desert from a cactus-ridden wasteland into a center of future American expansion. Standing near the President, lead engineer Frank Crowe swells with pride. And for the rest of his life, he will consider this dam his crowning achievement.

But despite the day’s celebration, the dam is not technically finished. There is still more work to be done. So, many laborers are kept on to fill the last gaps between concrete blocks and to complete the accompanying power plant. One of the remaining laborers is Patrick Tierney. He’s the only child of John Gregory Tierney, the surveyor who lost his life in a flash flood over a decade earlier. Patrick is now 26. He traveled with his family to Nevada two years ago and managed to parlay sympathy about his father’s death into a job on the dam.

Now, he’s proud to be one of the final workers on the project which his father, in many ways, started. But tragically, Patrick also does not live to see the dam finished. On December 20th, 1935, exactly 14 years after the death of his father, Patrick falls 320 feet from an intake tower. And just like his father, Patrick’s body is lost to the waters of the Colorado River. 

Thankfully, though, Patrick is the last casualty of construction work. But at least 95 other men died building the dam. And laborers will claim that many more deaths were wrongly blamed on pneumonia, when the true culprit was carbon monoxide poisoning caused by their machinery. 

The full truth behind the casualties on site may never be known. But the environmental damage done by the dam is now better understood. Ecosystems north and south of the Hoover Dam were forever changed by its construction.

Still, it remains an iconic structure of its age, welcoming millions of tourists each year and continuing to provide power to hundreds of thousands of homes. Its towering walls stand as a monument not only to the engineering brilliance of Frank Crowe, but also to the many forgotten men who died in the years before and after the historic first bucket of concrete was poured on June 6th, 1933. 

Outro

Next on History Daily. June 7th, 1099. After a long journey and many bloody battles, the first Crusaders lay siege to the City of Jerusalem.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammed Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Owen Long.

Edited by Dorian Merina.

Managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.