An unidentified man water skiing in front of the Hoover Dam on Lake Mead.

People ride on a speed boat near the Hoover Dam on Lake Mead.

An artist's rendering of Boulder Canyon. Text printed on front of postcard: "Looking downstream in Boulder Canyon at Hoover Dam site near Las Vegas, Nevada." Text printed on back of postcard: "The Hoover Dam site is 32 miles southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. Work is rapidly progressing on this tremendous project. The dam will be 727 feet high--the gorge is 290 feet wide at the river The dam site is in this narrow gorge, where the river disappears around the bend."

The Colorado River, twelve miles away from the Hoover Dam. The image was taken at sunrise.

Hoover (Boulder) Dam, taken from the upstream side of the dam on the Nevada side. May, 1947. The intake towers, Nevada spillway house (in the background, behind the intake towers), and the Nevada spillway are visible. During the years of lobbying leading up to the passage of legislation authorizing the dam in 1928, Hoover Dam was originally referred to "Boulder Dam" or as "Boulder Canyon Dam", even though the proposed site had shifted to Black Canyon. The Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928 (BCPA) never mentions a proposed name or title for the dam. When Secretary Wilbur spoke at the ceremony starting the building of the railway between Las Vegas and the dam site on September 17, 1930, he named the dam "Hoover Dam", citing a tradition of naming dams after Presidents, though none had been so honored during their terms of office. After Hoover's election defeat in 1932 and the accession of the Roosevelt administration, Secretary Ickes ordered on May 13, 1933 that the dam be referred to as "Boulder Dam". In the following years, the n

Photograph of Iceberg Canyon at Lake Mead on the Colorado River towards Hoover Dam.