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For a time when unemployment was high there was still

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some major labor going on in the depression-era USA we're talking some [People working during the Depression era]

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serious public projects like oh say the largest concrete structure in the world [Design for the Hoover Dam]

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at the time and no it wasn't a giant garden gnome it was yes the Hoover Dam

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it was a big deal folks and it still is it's even been compared to the Acropolis [Acropolis from Ancient Greece]

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of ancient Greece or the Colosseum of Imperial Rome. Hoover even said it was

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the greatest engineering work of its character ever attempted by the hand of [Herbert Hoover giving a speech]

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man of course he also kind of liked to say nice things since it was named after

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him, duh. Few dispute the fact that the dam was a major feat of engineering soaring

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726 feet it tamed the wild Colorado River which had a habit of flooding and [Colorado river flooding]

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going dry and all other kinds of randomness it was also always late for

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coffee dates which is just plain rude after it was finished the dam [Woman with a colorado river sign fora head late for a coffee meeting]

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helped irrigate square miles and miles and miles of surrounding land while also

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creating a massive amount of hydroelectric power for the West we can [hydroelectric power plants]

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say for a fact that it made the lives of robot cowboys infinitely brighter of

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course building this thing wasn't easy before anybody could get started they [Designs for the hoover dam]

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had to figure out how to divert the wild at willy Colorado well they managed it

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by drilling four 50 foot wide tunnels through the solid stone walls of Black [Wide tunnel drilled into a solid wall]

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Canyon to which the canyon said ouch yeah or something with more expletives.. and

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then there were these thrill-seeking guys called high scalers who were [Men working as high scalers]

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lowered in bosun's chairs down the canyon walls to strip away loose rock oh no big

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deal just being lowered into a canyon to knock away boulders you know their [Men lowering down the canyon in bosun's chairs]

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mothers were not pleased.. worse than running with scissors it took an army of

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workers pouring concrete all day every day for two years but eventually they

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got the job done sure the job was dangerous the pay was low and the housing

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was a far from a room at the Hilton but this was a depression plenty were [Hoover dam workers housing]

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willing to move out to the Nevada desert to get the job done 5,000 men and

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there families answered the call many of them

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hunkering down in the government's built Boulder City but there were also tent [Overview of boulder city]

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cities and honky tonk towns that popped up along the dusty road to the little

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known hamlet of Las Vegas back then people said whatever happens in vegas [Man talking about Vegas]

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whatever nothing happens in Vegas despite being a monster of a job the

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hoover dam was finished in 1935 and actually came in ahead of schedule and

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under budget in a time when a lot of people were depressed about America and [Depressed man stood in front of a US flag]

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be an American well it renewed faith in the country as a whole and so President

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Hoover's giant namesake brought joy and prosperity to the land which is maybe

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why the Roosevelt administration briefly named it the Boulder Dam come on FDR I [Roosevelt giving a speech on renaming the Hoover Dam to Boulder Dam]

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was a little needless, wasn't it?

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