Los trabajos preliminares para aislar y proteger la obra de las inundaciones se construyeron dos coferdanes. La construcción del coferdán superior comenzó en septiembre de 1932, cuando el río aún no había sido desviado. Un dique temporal en forma de herradura protegió la ataguía sobre el lado de Nevada del río.

Después de completar los túneles del lado de Arizona, y de desviar el río, el trabajo adquirió un ritmo mucho más rápido. Una vez que las ataguías fueron completadas y drenada la zona de trabajo, comenzó la excavación para la cimentación de la presa. Para apoyar la presa sobre roca sólida, era necesario quitar todo el material flojo hasta que la roca sólida fuera alcanzada. El trabajo sobre las excavaciones de cimentación fue completado en junio de 1933. Durante las excavaciones para la cimentación fueron retirados aproximadamente 1.150.000 m³ de material.

The diversion of the river

To divert the flow of the river around the construction site, four bypass tunnels were built through the canyon walls, two on the Nevada side and two on the Arizona side. These tunnels had a diameter. Their combined length was almost . Tunneling began at the lower entrances to the Nevada tunnels in May 1931.

A little later, work began on two similar tunnels in the Arizona canyon wall. In March 1932 work began on lining the tunnels with concrete. The concrete lining is almost a meter thick, reducing the finished tunnel diameter to .

The healing of the rock

Before construction could begin, loose rock had to be removed from the canyon walls. The men in charge of the work had to lower the canyon walls tied to ropes and worked with pneumatic hammers and dynamite to remove the loose rock.

Concrete pouring

The first concrete pour was made at the dam on June 6, 1933. No structure of the magnitude of the Hoover Dam had been built before. Many of the procedures used in the construction of the dam had never been tested. One of the problems faced by the designers was the shrinkage of the concrete in the dam. Rather than as a single block of concrete, the dam was built as a series of trapezoidal corbels to allow the enormous heat produced by the curing of the concrete to be dissipated. Engineers calculated that if the dam were built in a single block, the concrete would have taken 125 years to cool to room temperature. The resulting stresses would have cracked the dam and it would have been destroyed.

It was not enough to place small amounts of concrete in individual columns. To speed up the cooling of concrete so that the next layer could be poured, one-inch steel tubes were inserted.

When the concrete was poured, river water circulated through these tubes. Once the concrete had received a first initial cooling, they cooled the water in a cooling plant on the lower cofferdam and channeled it back through the tubes to finish the cooling. When each block had cooled adequately, the tubes were cut and pressurized grout was injected into them.

The excavation for the power plant was carried out together with those necessary for the foundation of the dam and abutments. Excavation for the U-shaped structure located at the downstream base of the dam was completed in late 1933. In conjunction with this work, the first concrete pour was performed in November 1933. Generators at the dam's Power Station began transmitting electrical power from the Colorado River a distance of 364 kilometers to Los Angeles, California on October 26, 1936. Additional generating units were added until 1961. Water flowing from Lake Mead to the power plant reaches a speed of approximately 135 kilometers per hour when it reaches the turbines.

The seventeen main turbine generators at this power plant generate a maximum of 2,074 megawatts of hydroelectric power. All hydroelectric plants generate a variable amount of energy that, depending on demand, varies throughout the day. In fact, a great advantage of hydropower is the ability to respond quickly and easily to such variation in demand.

Initial plans for the finished façade of both the dam and the power station consisted of a simple, unadorned concrete wall, topped with a Gothic-inspired balustrade, and a power station that resembled an industrial warehouse. This initial design was criticized by many for being too simple for a project of such scale. Architect Gordon B. Kaufmann was hired to design the exterior. Kaufmann streamlined the buildings, and applied an elegant art deco style to the project with sculpted turrets rising seamlessly from the dam face and clock faces above the set of entrance towers for Mountain and Pacific time zones. The Hoover Dam today is considered one of the finest examples of art deco in the world.

The dam and power plant are managed by the Bureau of Reclamation of the Department of the Interior.

The Hoover Dam was also built as a highway crossing for the U.S. Highway. Route 93 (Nevada) "U.S. Route 93 (Nevada)"). This changed in October 2010 when the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge was dedicated as part of the Hoover Dam Highway Project.

The stretch of U.S. Route 93 that crosses the Hoover Dam is inadequate for the increased traffic. It has a single lane for each direction, several narrow and dangerous curves and poor visibility distances. Following September 11, 2001, truck traffic over the Hoover Dam has been diverted south in an effort to safeguard the dam from explosions. The carriageway and bridge are necessary to improve travel, replace dangerous roadway and reduce the threat of an attack or potential accident.

• - Construction period: April 20, 1931, March 1, 1936.

• - Construction cost: 49 million dollars (835 million with inflation adjustment).

• - Deaths: 96[7]​.

• - Height: 221.4 m.

• - Length: 379.2 m.

• - Thickness 200 m at its base, 15 m at the top.

• - Concrete: 3.33 million m³.

• - Power: 2074 megawatts.

• - Accidents during construction: 107.

• - Traffic over the dam: between 13,000 and 16,000 people/day.

• - Area of ​​the dammed lake: 639 km².

• - Impounded volume: 35.3 km³.

• - It is the place where the story revolves, at the same time the most important and crucial of the video game Fallout: New Vegas.

• - In Transformers "Transformers (movie)") it is the secret base of Sector 7 and where they keep cryogenized Megatron "Megatron (Transformers)").

• - In the movie San Andreas "San Andreas (film)") after a break in the Hoover Dam, a shake occurs on the San Andreas Fault, causing two earthquakes of 9.1 and 9.6 degrees that affect California.

• - In the 1978 film Superman: The Movie, the dam breaks due to an earthquake and Superman blocks it to prevent an adjacent flood.[8]​.

• - Appears at the beginning of the 1992 film Universal Soldier, where the UNI-SOL thwart a hostage situation.[9]​.

• - In Rick Riordan's book "Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse", the heroes stop, throughout a chapter, in the dam area.

• - In the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the dam is parodied under the name "The Sherman Dam". It is accessible in one of its missions.

• - It also appears in the video game Duke Nukem Forever.

• - In the film Terminator: Dark Fate a part of action takes place in said film.

• - Arrigo, Anthony F. (2014). Imaging Hoover Dam: The Making of a Cultural Icon. Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press.

• - Dam "Dam (hydraulic)").

• - Civil Engineering.

• - Hydroelectric energy.

• - Colorado River "Colorado River (North America)").

• - Wikimedia Commons hosts a multimedia category on Hoover Dam.

Los trabajos preliminares para aislar y proteger la obra de las inundaciones se construyeron dos coferdanes. La construcción del coferdán superior comenzó en septiembre de 1932, cuando el río aún no había sido desviado. Un dique temporal en forma de herradura protegió la ataguía sobre el lado de Nevada del río.

Después de completar los túneles del lado de Arizona, y de desviar el río, el trabajo adquirió un ritmo mucho más rápido. Una vez que las ataguías fueron completadas y drenada la zona de trabajo, comenzó la excavación para la cimentación de la presa. Para apoyar la presa sobre roca sólida, era necesario quitar todo el material flojo hasta que la roca sólida fuera alcanzada. El trabajo sobre las excavaciones de cimentación fue completado en junio de 1933. Durante las excavaciones para la cimentación fueron retirados aproximadamente 1.150.000 m³ de material.

The diversion of the river

To divert the flow of the river around the construction site, four bypass tunnels were built through the canyon walls, two on the Nevada side and two on the Arizona side. These tunnels had a diameter. Their combined length was almost . Tunneling began at the lower entrances to the Nevada tunnels in May 1931.

A little later, work began on two similar tunnels in the Arizona canyon wall. In March 1932 work began on lining the tunnels with concrete. The concrete lining is almost a meter thick, reducing the finished tunnel diameter to .

The healing of the rock

Before construction could begin, loose rock had to be removed from the canyon walls. The men in charge of the work had to lower the canyon walls tied to ropes and worked with pneumatic hammers and dynamite to remove the loose rock.

Concrete pouring

The first concrete pour was made at the dam on June 6, 1933. No structure of the magnitude of the Hoover Dam had been built before. Many of the procedures used in the construction of the dam had never been tested. One of the problems faced by the designers was the shrinkage of the concrete in the dam. Rather than as a single block of concrete, the dam was built as a series of trapezoidal corbels to allow the enormous heat produced by the curing of the concrete to be dissipated. Engineers calculated that if the dam were built in a single block, the concrete would have taken 125 years to cool to room temperature. The resulting stresses would have cracked the dam and it would have been destroyed.

It was not enough to place small amounts of concrete in individual columns. To speed up the cooling of concrete so that the next layer could be poured, one-inch steel tubes were inserted.

When the concrete was poured, river water circulated through these tubes. Once the concrete had received a first initial cooling, they cooled the water in a cooling plant on the lower cofferdam and channeled it back through the tubes to finish the cooling. When each block had cooled adequately, the tubes were cut and pressurized grout was injected into them.

The excavation for the power plant was carried out together with those necessary for the foundation of the dam and abutments. Excavation for the U-shaped structure located at the downstream base of the dam was completed in late 1933. In conjunction with this work, the first concrete pour was performed in November 1933. Generators at the dam's Power Station began transmitting electrical power from the Colorado River a distance of 364 kilometers to Los Angeles, California on October 26, 1936. Additional generating units were added until 1961. Water flowing from Lake Mead to the power plant reaches a speed of approximately 135 kilometers per hour when it reaches the turbines.

The seventeen main turbine generators at this power plant generate a maximum of 2,074 megawatts of hydroelectric power. All hydroelectric plants generate a variable amount of energy that, depending on demand, varies throughout the day. In fact, a great advantage of hydropower is the ability to respond quickly and easily to such variation in demand.

Initial plans for the finished façade of both the dam and the power station consisted of a simple, unadorned concrete wall, topped with a Gothic-inspired balustrade, and a power station that resembled an industrial warehouse. This initial design was criticized by many for being too simple for a project of such scale. Architect Gordon B. Kaufmann was hired to design the exterior. Kaufmann streamlined the buildings, and applied an elegant art deco style to the project with sculpted turrets rising seamlessly from the dam face and clock faces above the set of entrance towers for Mountain and Pacific time zones. The Hoover Dam today is considered one of the finest examples of art deco in the world.

The dam and power plant are managed by the Bureau of Reclamation of the Department of the Interior.

The Hoover Dam was also built as a highway crossing for the U.S. Highway. Route 93 (Nevada) "U.S. Route 93 (Nevada)"). This changed in October 2010 when the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge was dedicated as part of the Hoover Dam Highway Project.

The stretch of U.S. Route 93 that crosses the Hoover Dam is inadequate for the increased traffic. It has a single lane for each direction, several narrow and dangerous curves and poor visibility distances. Following September 11, 2001, truck traffic over the Hoover Dam has been diverted south in an effort to safeguard the dam from explosions. The carriageway and bridge are necessary to improve travel, replace dangerous roadway and reduce the threat of an attack or potential accident.

• - Construction period: April 20, 1931, March 1, 1936.

• - Construction cost: 49 million dollars (835 million with inflation adjustment).

• - Deaths: 96[7]​.

• - Height: 221.4 m.

• - Length: 379.2 m.

• - Thickness 200 m at its base, 15 m at the top.

• - Concrete: 3.33 million m³.

• - Power: 2074 megawatts.

• - Accidents during construction: 107.

• - Traffic over the dam: between 13,000 and 16,000 people/day.

• - Area of ​​the dammed lake: 639 km².

• - Impounded volume: 35.3 km³.

• - It is the place where the story revolves, at the same time the most important and crucial of the video game Fallout: New Vegas.

• - In Transformers "Transformers (movie)") it is the secret base of Sector 7 and where they keep cryogenized Megatron "Megatron (Transformers)").

• - In the movie San Andreas "San Andreas (film)") after a break in the Hoover Dam, a shake occurs on the San Andreas Fault, causing two earthquakes of 9.1 and 9.6 degrees that affect California.

• - In the 1978 film Superman: The Movie, the dam breaks due to an earthquake and Superman blocks it to prevent an adjacent flood.[8]​.

• - Appears at the beginning of the 1992 film Universal Soldier, where the UNI-SOL thwart a hostage situation.[9]​.

• - In Rick Riordan's book "Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse", the heroes stop, throughout a chapter, in the dam area.

• - In the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the dam is parodied under the name "The Sherman Dam". It is accessible in one of its missions.

• - It also appears in the video game Duke Nukem Forever.

• - In the film Terminator: Dark Fate a part of action takes place in said film.

• - Arrigo, Anthony F. (2014). Imaging Hoover Dam: The Making of a Cultural Icon. Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press.

• - Dam "Dam (hydraulic)").

• - Civil Engineering.

• - Hydroelectric energy.

• - Colorado River "Colorado River (North America)").

• - Wikimedia Commons hosts a multimedia category on Hoover Dam.