A feat of modern civil engineering, Hoover Dam has stood tall and brought billions of visitors to Las Vegas since it was constructed in the 1930s. But one of the lesser known facts about it is that it hasn’t always carried that name.
Visitors may be interested to know that those who built the dam wanted to keep the name Boulder Dam, named after Boulder Canyon, underscoring tensions between the working class and the federal government during the Great Depression.
After Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the election in 1932 and Herbert Hoover became a lame-duck president, many blamed Hoover for the downturn of the economy that would later spur the New Deal, a series of domestic programs and reforms. It was after Hoover lost the election that he paid dam workers a visit in Boulder City and was met with boos, according to news accounts.
What’s in a name?
Such a sentiment was shared by many at the time, considering Boulder Dam had been the most commonly used name thus far and Hoover was associated with the dire straits the country found itself in.
It was common up until that point to name dams after leaders, with examples such as the Wilson Dam in Alabama and the Coolidge Dam in Arizona. Unofficially, in September 1930, before the dam had begun construction, then-Interior Secretary Ray Lyman Wilbur journeyed to the desert to celebrate the completion of the railroad from Las Vegas to the future site of the dam.
“I have the honor and privilege of giving a name to this new structure,” Wilbur said during the ceremony. “In Black Canyon, under the Boulder Canyon Project Act, it shall be called the Hoover Dam.”
That wasn’t well received. Even before that speech, in January 1930, the Las Vegas Review-Journal — then the Las Vegas Evening Review and Journal— ran an editorial criticizing one of the many congressional proposals to change the name officially to Hoover Dam.
“We cannot afford to lose all this momentum and publicity, for as a scenic attraction, it has already been publicized far beyond any of our national parks, or other resorts,” the paper wrote. “To change it now would be almost the same as changing the name of the Panama Canal to ‘Hoover Canal’ or ‘Roosevelt Canal,’ and certainly no one would suggest that.”
Name eventually stuck
Harold Ickes, whom Roosevelt chose to become Interior secretary in his administration, decided in May 1933 to revert the name back to Boulder Dam because he felt it “should not carry the name of any living man but, on the contrary, should be baptized with a designation as bold and characteristic and imagination-stirring as the dam itself.”
Some believed that Hoover deserved the honor because of his support for the project in its early stages. In his speech, Ickes failed to mention that other dams carried the names of presidents, as well.
The record was set straight in 1947, when President Harry Truman signed a congressional resolution to officially rename it Hoover Dam, acknowledging Hoover’s contributions and noting that the construction contracts were signed under his administration.
Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.
