Lake Mead National Recreation Area – Lake Mead Overlook NV

City:
Lake Mead, NV

Site Type:
Parks and Recreation

New Deal Agencies:
Work Relief Programs, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

Description

“To accommodate the influx of tourists, new park facilities were in demand. With CCC labor, the NPS developed beaches and outdoor facilities in three different areas of the Boulder Dam Recreational Area (later subsumed by Lake Mead National Recreation Area): Hemenway Wash near Boulder City, Overton Beach, and Pierce Ferry in Arizona. The park service’s CCC program accomplished its goals. NPS director Arno Cammerer was pleased with the ‘fine cooperation from the Civilian Conservation Corps.’

Enrollees and staff from the Boulder City and Overton camps provided the main labor force for the new recreation area. In addition to building campgrounds, other ancillary tasks needed their attention. For example, grading and sanding the bathing beach (now Boulder Beach) in Hemenway Wash was greatly appreciated by local residents. To transform the stony slope into suitable beach, a half-mile-by-seven hundred-foot swath (on each side of the highway) was graded, leveled, and sanded. The CCC built bathhouses and floating boat and swimming docks and created a desert oasis by planting lawns and trees in the new campground. Boulder City enrollees also built the natural rock wall at the Lake Mead Overlook, a few miles west of the dam, so visitors could enjoy a breathtaking view of the new lake. When a skilled stonemason was laid off after building the first fifty feet of rock wall, enrollees completed the project.”

–The Civilian Conservation Corps in Nevada

Source notes

Renee Corona Kolvet and Victoria Ford, The Civilian Conservation Corps in Nevada: From Boys to Men. University of Nevada Press, 2006. Pg. 98.

Site originally submitted by The Living New Deal on June 15, 2012.
Additional contributions by Douglas W. Dodd.

Location Info


Lake Mead Overlook
Boulder City, NV 89005

Coordinates: 36.017075, -114.76200

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