Driving around Page Arizona

We drove around yesterday to acclimate us to the area. Page Arizona started out as a town for the workers on the Glen Canyon bridge and dam projects in the late 1950's. Until that time there was nothing here due to the remoteness of the area.

Looking to control and harness the power of the Colorado River this location was selected for a dam. But first they had to build a bridge because it was a 200 mile journey from one side of the canyon to the other.








Actually first they built a footbridge from one side to the other. The video in the Carl Hayden Vistior's Center shows the footbridge better, the bottom was a chain link fence and the sides were chicken wire. The width was 7 feet across and about 1200 feet long. Seeing the workers walk on this unsteady footbridge sent chills up and down our spines.
















The footbridge allowed workers to get from one side to the other so they could begin building the bridge. The bridge allowed the heavy equipment to go from one side to the other saving 200 miles each trip.

















Now they could build the dam, a concrete arch dam with a crest length of 1,560 feet. It contains 4,901,000 cubic yards of concrete. The dam is 25 feet wide at the crest and 300 feet wide at the maximum base. It is 710 feet high, only the Hoover Dam is taller by 16 feet of all the USA concrete dams. Construction started in 1956 and was completed in 1963, the first electricity was generated in 1964 and the dam was dedicated in 1966 by Ladybird Johnson. It took until 1980 for the lake to reach full pool. The power generation is a maximum of 1300 megawatts with normal operations between 600-800 megawatts.

Here is a photo of the dam and bridge together.

This is an amazing part of the country and we are going to enjoy exploring the area although today the truck is in the shop who is looking at why the auxiliary fuel tank is not draining to the main fuel tank. They had to remove the fuel tank when we had our repair work done on the truck bed when we dropped the Cameo on the truck. When they put it back on they must have done something wrong. We should have checked this while we were still in the area, oh well another lesson learned.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo