Frommer's Las Vegas 2004

HOOVER DAM & LAKE MEAD 279
All the architecture is on a grand scale, and the design has beautiful Art Deco
elements, unusual in an engineering project. Note, for instance, the monumental
30-foot bronze sculpture, Winged Figures of the Republic, flanking a 142-foot
flagpole at the Nevada entrance. According to its creator, Oskar Hansen, the
sculpture symbolizes “the immutable calm of intellectual resolution, and the
enormous power of trained physical strength, equally enthroned in placid triumph
of scientific achievement.”
The dam has become a major sightseeing attraction along with Lake Mead,
America’s largest artificial reservoir and a major Nevada recreation area.
Seven miles northwest of the dam on U.S. 93, you’ll pass through Boulder
City, which was built to house managerial and construction workers. Sweltering
summer heat (many days it is 125°F/52°C) ruled out a campsite by the dam.
The higher elevation of Boulder City offered lower temperatures. The city
emerged within a single year, turning a desert wasteland into a community of
6,000. By 1934 it was Nevada’s third-largest town.
TOURING THE DAM
The very nice Hoover Dam Visitor Center, a vast three-level circular concrete
structure with a rooftop overlook, opened in 1995. You’ll enter the Reception
Lobby (bags were not allowed inside after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but ask
about current security measures as they may have changed), where you can buy
tickets; peruse informational exhibits, photographs, and memorabilia; and view
three 12-minute video presentations (about the importance of water to life, the
events leading up to the construction of Hoover Dam, and the construction
itself, as well as the many benefits it confers). Exhibits on the Plaza Level include
interactive displays on the environment, habitation, and development of the
Southwest, the people who built the dam, and related topics.
Yet another floor up, galleries on the Overlook Level demonstrate, via
sculpted bronze panels, the benefits of Hoover Dam and Lake Mead to the states
of Arizona, Nevada, and California. The Overlook Level additionally provides
an unobstructed view of Lake Mead, the dam, the power plant, the Colorado
River, and Black Canyon. (There are multiple photo opportunities throughout
this trip.)
You can visit an exhibit center across the street where a 10-minute presentation
in a small theater focuses on a topographical map of the 1,400-mile Colorado
River. It also has a cafeteria. Notice, by the way, how the restrooms in the
exhibition center only have electric dryers, no paper towels. A tribute?
Thirty-minute tours of the dam depart from the Reception Lobby every 15
minutes or so daily, except Thanksgiving and Christmas. The visitor center opens
at 9am, and the first tour departs soon after. The last tour leaves at 4:30pm, and
the center closes at 5pm. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for senior citizens and
military personnel and their dependents, $4 for children 7 to 16, and free for
children under 7. There is no need to call ahead to reserve a place on the tour but
for more information, call & 866/291-TOUR or 702/597-5970.
Note: At this writing, because of post–September 11 security measures, tours of
the dam are highly restricted. Groups go to the center, see a movie, and, best of
all, get to walk on top of the dam, meeting with six different tour guides (each
with their own informative spiel) along the way. Guests should also get to descend,
via elevator, partly into the bowels of the thing. Obviously, those measures could
at any moment be lifted, or further tightened. We include a description of the
usual tour to illustrate what you would get if the restrictions are ever lifted. You