Power Transfer Line – Pioche NV

Description

The federal Public Works Administration provided a hefty loan and grant enabling the construction of a power line that would bring electricity from the then-newly completed Hoover Dam to the eastern Nevada town of Pioche.

Nevadaculture.org:
“[Then-Director of the Public Works Administration for Nevada Wright L. Felt] directed the government’s assistance to Nevada for the construction of the first line delivering electrical power from the newly completed dam.  That line, to Pioche, Nevada served as a kind of model for the succeeding ones, and it cost $ 900,000 to complete.  The PWA under Felt’s direction provided about a third of that money as an outright gift and another third as a long-term loan.  The line to Pioche, Nevada, some 155 miles north of the dam, was built in 1937.

He also made a radio address over station KOH in Reno, on January 14, 1937, describing the role of the PWA in supporting the first of the several electrical power lines to be constructed from Hoover Dam.   The furnishing of electrical power was one of the main purposed of the dam, and this first power line served as a template followed by subsequent lines.”

The PWA provided a $264,000 long-term loan in support of the project, in addition to a $325,348 outright loan, for a total of $589,348 in total assistance toward the $894,413 project. Construction began at the end of December 1935; work was completed in July 1937.

PWA Docket No. NV 1006.