Hoover Dam

Tel: (702) 494-2517
Fax: (702) 494-2587

www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/

Quick Facts:

• Hoover Dam was constructed between 1930 and 1936 and renamed in 1947 from Boulder Dam to Hoover Dam
• Used for flood control
• Power capacity of 1,345 megawatts
• Occupies a volume of 3,360,000 cubic metres
• At its base, Hoover Dam is as thick (660 feet) as two footballs fields measured end to end.
• Hoover Dam is 726 feet tall. That's almost 200 feet taller than the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.
• During peak periods of electrical demands, enough water runs through the generators to fill 15 average-size swimming pools (20,000 gallons each) in one second.
• There is enough concrete in Hoover Dam (4.5 million cubic yards) to build a two-lane road from Seattle, Washington, to Miami, Florida, or a four-foot-wide sidewalk around the Earth at the Equator.
• The Hoover Dam is so thick and heavy, it doesn't even need to be curved; it's heavy enough to resist the weight and thrust of the water pushing behind it, but designers thought people would feel safer with a curved design.