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Elephant Butte Dam site: foundation of dam in bed of river, third section in foreground under construction, looking west

Library of Congress · 1914

The dry bed of a river walled off for construction, with derricks and stiff-leg cranes standing over a poured foundation; the print is held to a black album page by corner mounts above a typed caption slip.
From the archive · Library of Congress · 1914 Elephant Butte Dam site: foundation of dam in bed of river, third section in foreground under construction, looking west

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-49841 No known restrictions on publication. Archive record ↗ · Rights

Source Archival record · verify at Library of Congress ↗

The same dam two years earlier, with the Rio Grande pushed aside and its bed dry enough to pour on. The photograph is still in its progress album, corner-mounted, with the engineer's typed slip underneath.

Shows: What building storage on a river meant: moving the river first, then working in its bed.

What this does not let you conclude: The finished structure or its capacity. This is a construction record made for the office that ordered it. The typed caption slip on the album page reads 'Feb. 27, 1914.'

Placed on

  • Topic storage · plate

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The archive’s record did not answer our check on 2026-10-12 (refused automated check, HTTP 403). Our copy above is unaffected; the credit stands. A person will look.

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