Black Canyon

This picture was taken before the turn of the 20th century. It reveals the darkness of this canyon, rock that reaches to the sky, the river subdued.

It is Black Canyon not Boulder Canyon where the final dam project was set. It is the highest section of the El Dorado mountains, yet a narrow passageway for the river itself. It is unique for it's precambrian mineral composite. It was virtually unknown until the dam was to be built.

The men working on this dam were told the Colorado River was wild. They believing it to be a river needing to be tamed. Yet when the workers stood on the shores here in Black Canyon did they feel the wildness of this river? Were they immersed in the relationship of rock against water, water against rock? Did those 5,000 workers question what they were doing? Were they really only here for a wage of four dollars a day? Did anybody stop to wonder, here in Black Canyon, not only the magnitude of the place but the smallness of their very being?

Guy Lombardo, Kate Smith, "RIVER STAY 'WAY FROM MY DOOR" (1931)

Bandleader and musician, Guy Lombardo and singer, Kate Smith were very popular in the early 30s. The song, 'River Stay 'Way from Me' is timely.

At the dam site, radio broadcasts weren't heard much until the men moved into the dormitories in Boulder City in '32. However, this might have been just the tune to play at the first dance celebrating the start of the dam in July of 1931.

...What is music to a culture but an expression of its hope and an acceptance of what can change in the blink of an eye as well as over time...

Guy Lombardo, Kate Smith "TOO LATE" (1931)

Picture yourself, after months of mucking on the roadbed, the groundbreaking for the dam begins. For this honor you've been invited to the American Legion for a dance. Here, women and girls from Las Vegas and the soon to be built town of Boulder City arrive, as well as those from Ragtown that may have temporary residence but nonetheless share in the excitement.

Men smoke cigars outside the hall, women sip fruit punch, cool and delicious. It's late spring, 1931, and the music of Guy Lombardo, with the lilting voice of Kate Smith play on the gramophone, as if made for this night. Yes there are some things that are "Too Late" but there's an amazing amount of work ahead that nobody knows just how dramatic it will be. And above it all, regained hope fills the air.

Time is money 1931 Buick

Frank Crowe, the chief engineer of the dam, drove only a Buick, a big, bold, beautiful, Buick. When you saw Crowe's Buick parked in front of Anderson's mess hall, it meant that you would be in for a speech about increasing the speed in which you worked.

Thus, even hood ornaments tell a story about the people that drove these cars. Time is money, and money is beauty.

desert roadrunner

To avoid flying, the desert roadrunner runs! Up to 17 miles an hour! Oh, sure if it is scared, or going downhill, it can fly. Yet it prefers to travel by foot. It keeps cool as many other creatures of the desert do, by limiting travel during the heat of the day. And it gets hungry--mostly for snakes,(capturing rattlesnakes by wrapping its cape-like wings around it) lizards and insects. And it shares, the male offering tidbits of a tasty find with a female friend.

Yes, the roadrunner, at rest beside a creosote bush, with a call similar to a dove, is a reminder that creatures in the hostile desert environment populate the landscape by virtue of keeping the "road to itself."

Sure it is prey to hawks raccoons and cats, but the roadrunner avoids the thing it should do, fly, and avoids its predators by running. In other words, what is expected isn't always the answer. The unexpected, such as running instead of flying, is a preference and one that works for the roadrunner. Consequently it stands out as its main feature.

There were men who left the job on the dam to do something else, hitching a ride on a train car heading west, north, east or south, perhaps for a better job, or maybe even just to be near family or to try something else.

However, the men were expected to stay, since the pay was regular and the food was decent and it was a matter of principle to get the job done along with the others. Yet it wasn't enough to get some men to "fly" like the others. Thus names were given, such as drifter and grifter, describing their unexpected behavior. When really, for the individual, name or no name, it was just as adaptive to run as it was to fly with the others.

1. Art and poetry 1930s

THE VENTILATOR, Arthur Osver, American (b. 1912), oil on Masonite

In the 1930s, American art took a unique point of view independent of European themes but rather the social concerns and aspects of traditional American life.



As a poet, William Carlos Williams escaped the disadvantages and hardships many of his peers succumbed to. He was a medical doctor by profession, and also a man with poetry to heal a people of his time and a beacon for those who look to his words still.

A Sort of a Song

Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless.
-- through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.

William Carlos Williams

Events of 1931

To get a better picture of any specific event a close up of other events may help. For instance, on February 5, 1931 a storm caused 2 houses to fall into the ocean off of Roosevelt Highway, (now Hwy One) near Topanga Canyon.

Gasoline was 19 cents a gallon. That was high, considering gas in the 1970's was still 25 cents a gallon.

However, coffee, Hills Brothers in the red can was just 37 cents a can and dog food was 95 cents for eleven cans.

Bobby Jones was going to teach the world golf in 1931 and Frank Sigafoos was traded from the Seals to the Angels in Coast League baseball.

Actor John Barrymore was romancing Dolores Costello (or the other way around) and William Morano was just 14 and hitched alone across the country to become an actor in Hollywood.

You might receive payment of moonshine for selling your car, and hopefully a fight won't start when the payment gets consumed before it gets to you.

In the Las Vegas Age Thursday, March 5, 1931 the headline states: Work to be rushed on great Hoover Dam project...

Rushed times, these were, while the going was getting stronger, building from the collapse, moving around the depression like we do, yes, like we do.