Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over one hundred lives. The dam was controversially named after President Herbert Hoover. When the Wall Street Crash of 1929 struck less than eight months after he took office, Hoover tried to combat the ensuing Great Depression with moderate government public works projects such as the Hoover Dam.
Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume. The dam is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 48km southeast of Las Vegas. With a length of 379m and a height of 221m, it was for 22 years the highest dam in the world. On its top edge there is a 5m wide road which connects Arizona and Nevada, respectively the Atlantic and Pacific, between San Francisco and New York. In the driest region and the hotest climate of the United States, in northern of Sonoran Desert and southern of Mojave Desert, Hoover Dam provides water for millions of people.
Chief engineer of the whole project was Frank Crowe, who made possible the realization of the project by the application of many of the most important of his inventions. British-American architect Gordon Kaufmann, known for his earlier architectural work, especially in Art Deco style, made the stylistic refinement of the entire complex of buildings and of the dam in the same style. At Kaufmann's request, the artist Allen Tupper True was hired to handle the design and decoration of the walls and floors of the new dam. True's design scheme incorporated motifs of the Navajo and Pueblo tribes of the region. Complementing Kaufmann and True's work, the Norwegian-born, naturalized American sculptor Oskar J.W. Hansen designed many of the sculptures on and around the dam.
About the stamps
The first stamp is a Global Forever First-Class Mail International stamp, about which I wrote here. The second stamp, depicting a silver coffeepot, is part of the definitives series American Design (2002-2007), about which I wrote here,
References
Hoover Dam - Wikipedia
Sender: Denise
Sent from Jericho (New York / United States), on 06.12.2013
Photo: William Carr
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