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H oover D am opened the floodgates o f growth, prosperity in Las Vegas Valley By JOAN WHITELY REVIEW-JOURNAL Las V egans w ere not the first to pull for a dam on the Colorado River. Since the 1850s, dream ers had pondered a dam to m ake the turbulent w aters m ore navigable, to prevent flooding o f farm land and, even , to irrigate the desert for agriculture. N ot long before World War I, Fred H esse o f Las V egas — who would becom e m ayor o f the city in 1925 — led an engineering party hired by private in terests into the Colorado’s canyons to study dam sites. But given the canyon depths and ABOUT THE BOOK This is the 12th, and final, installment of "Young Las Vegas, 1905-1931; Before The Future Found Us," a new history book by Joan Whitely, a Review-Journal feature writer. the river’s w ildness, the project scale would need to be colossal, m ore than private industry could handle. The nation’s entry into World War I doom ed the effort. C.P. Squires, who w as already on the scen e when the 1905 Las V egas land NEVADA STATE MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY W hen Congress passed the bill for Hoover Dam in December 1928, Las Vegans held an im prom ptu parade d o w n Frem ont Street because they knew the business it w ould bring w ould spread prosperity. Th e train depot appears in the distance, at the head of Frem ont Street. auction took place* never took his ey e o ff the ball. Though it took him decades, he personally shepherded the project through the halls o f pow er in N evada, the W est at large and W ashington, D.C. Squires later explained what kept him going: a turn-of-the-century conversation w ith engineer John P. Culver, who had developed th e m unicipal w ater svstem o f Los A ngeles. Culver predicted ? SEE DAM PAGE 12K lft6 | J | ||f figifj