Hoover Dam Transmission Cable

A piece of the unique electrical cables that carried hydroelectric power from the Hoover Dam. The Hoover Dam, constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression, stands as a monumental achievement in engineering. This concrete arch-gravity dam, located on the border of Nevada and Arizona is one of the highest concrete dams ever built, towering at 726.4 feet. It created the largest man-made reservoir by volume in the United States, Lake Mead. A significant aspect of the Hoover Dam’s infrastructure was its custom designed transmission cables, used to carry electricity from the dam to Los Angeles, transmitting 287,500 volts across the Mojave Desert. These high-voltage cables are composed of ten segments connected by tongue-and-groove joints, forming a smooth copper tube 1.4 inches in diameter. When suspended between towers, the interlocking plates allows the cable to gently flex when moving in the wind. Electricity primarily flows along the outer surface of a conductor, so this