Hoover Dam: First Joint Venture and Construction Milestones in Excavation, Geology, Materials Handling, and Aggregates

The size of the Boulder Canyon Project necessitated a broad array of innovations in construction engineering and management which had enormous impacts on all of the large scale projects that followed it. Foremost among these was the employment of a joint venture involving eight different firms, organized into six partners (Six Companies, Incorporated). Many of the techniques employed to construct of Hoover Dam were of a pioneering nature, designed to hasten the construction schedule and maximize profits. These were emulated and perfected by Six Companies and most of their competitors for several decades thereafter. Some of these included: multiple-level rail spurs; temporary trestles and suspension bridges of many sizes, employment of construction access adits to allow multiple headings of underground workings; fully automated concrete batch plants; staging of construction materials on the opposite river bank; government provision of all materials except the concrete aggregate (to minimize risk of construction claims and delays). Major achievements were also made in quality assurance and materials testing, despite the fact that the job proceeded round-the-clock.