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Boulder Dam spillway, drum gates, and piers

Library of Congress · 1934 · Ben D. Glaha

A vast curved steel drum gate lies along the lip of a blank concrete spillway apron, a square pier rising at its far end and one worker standing on the crest.
From the archive · Library of Congress · 1934 Boulder Dam spillway, drum gates, and piers Ben D. Glaha

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-14184 No known restrictions on publication. Archive record ↗ · Rights

Source Archival record · verify at Library of Congress ↗

The drum gates at the head of a Hoover Dam spillway, before the water. Glaha photographed the job the way an architect photographs a building; the man on the crest is the only thing giving it a size.

Shows: The scale of the gates that decide when the Colorado is allowed past.

What this does not let you conclude: Any operating decision. What is released from that system today is a legal and hydrological question our compact pages take up; this is the hardware.

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