Frank Crowe

Building the Hoover Dam led the America and the world out of the Great Depression. See life through the eyes of farmers, hustlers, bricklayers, businessmen, politicians, whores and truck drivers who built the Dam, then traveled 21 miles on Death's Highway, to Sin City, Las Vegas where legal gambling, whorehouses and cold beer awaited. The Hoover Dam began with the death of worker John G. Tierney, December 20th 1922, and ended with the death of his son Patrick W. Tierney, December 20th 1935, exactly thirteen years to the day in the same river, working on the Hoover Dam. From Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt, seven American Presidents were personally involved in the building of the Dam. Larger than the Pyramids, more complex than the Great Wall of China, the Hoover Dam helped populate the western United States. America became the bread basket of the world. This dam controls floods and drought in seven states, provides electricity, fresh drinking water to irrigate 1/4 million square miles of new farm land. The weight of the water behind the dam moved planet earth a fraction out of balance.