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With Jenny & Jeff Story Index All photos by Jeff Scheid. Click on the map for an enlargement. The landmark Boulder Dam Hotel recently reopened for business (1). Boulder City/Hoover Dam Museum provides a look at the people behind the dam construction. The museum is inside the Boulder Dam Hotel (1). Hungry Boulder City visitors can step back in time at the Happy Days Diner (2). The official emblem for the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (originally called the Bureau of Power and Light) remains in the building at Ash Street and Nevada Way, although the company is long gone (3). A turbine runner is displayed at Wilbur Square Park (9). St. Christopher's Episcopal Church was built in 1932 (12). Covered sidewalks shade shoppers in downtown Boulder City. Boulder City's peak provides a great view of Lake Mead.

Sunday, June 24, 2001
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

A Place in History

A tour of Boulder City reveals a town that takes pride in its past

In 1929, the U.S. government was searching for a place to house the men who would be working on the Hoover Dam project. Although Las Vegas was an established town at that time, officials nixed the idea of housing workers there. Las Vegas was too far from the dam site, and government officials didn't want the workers distracted by its vices: gambling, drinking and prostitution.

Instead they chose a piece of barren, desert land 24 miles southeast of Las Vegas. In an amazing feat of planning, engineering and constructing, both the dam and Boulder City were built in five years.

In the early 1930s, the cities of Las Vegas and Boulder City had roughly the same population of 5,000 residents, but since then their paths have taken widely divergent routes. While metropolitan Las Vegas has grown into a flashy tourist destination with a ballooning population, Boulder City remains a relatively small, family-friendly community of about 15,000.

And while Las Vegans think nothing of blowing up or demolishing a landmark building, Boulder City residents embrace their historical past and work hard to preserve it. There are still a number of commercial and residential buildings that date back to the city's beginnings, and Boulder City is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

A walk through Boulder City's compact Historic District is an ideal way to see a slice of early Southern Nevada life in the West's first federally planned city. A good place to start is the newly reopened Boulder Dam Hotel (1).

The hotel was Southern Nevada's first resort destination attracting such movie stars as Bette Davis, Shirley Temple, Boris Karloff and Will Rogers. Completed in 1933, the large Colonial-style building is a departure from the mission-style buildings that dominate the downtown commercial center.

The Boulder City/Hoover Dam Museum is on the lower level of the hotel. In addition to presenting information on the construction of the dam, the museum provides insight on the lives of the workers and their families. General admission is $2.

Group walking tours of the city's Historic District can be arranged through the museum and are conducted by docents, some of whom are longtime residents. We were given a tour by Paul and Barbara Adams, who have lived in Boulder City for 33 years.

Around the corner from the hotel, the Happy Days Diner (2) is a good place to get an inexpensive, all-American meal. The classic diner, which opened in 1932 as the Green Hut Cafe, features a Wurlitzer jukebox, soda fountain and photos of famous '50s and '60s entertainers.

To mimic the popular look of Hollywood starlets of the 1930s, Green Hut Cafe owner Clarence Newland mandated that all his waitresses have blond hair (whether it was natural or not). He also hired a black cook, which was quite controversial for a town that excluded blacks from living within its borders.

Although it has changed names and owners, the Happy Days Diner is one of four Boulder City businesses still operating on or near their original downtown sites. A few doors down, the Coffee Cup has also been the site of a restaurant since opening in December 1931 as Browder's Lunch. The building is still owned by the Browder family.

The building on the corner of Nevada Way and Ash Street once accommodated the Bureau of Power and Light (3), one of two agencies that operated the generators at Hoover Dam and provided electricity to Southern California.

The cityscape changes from commercial to residential as you continue south on Nevada Way, an extension of Nevada Highway. When the Boulder City plan was designed, neighborhoods were laid out according to job status; the homes of the highest-paid employees were atop the hill that now overlooks Lake Mead.

The second-tier homes on the tree-named streets (Ash, Cherry, Birch, etc.) were built to house the families of power and light employees (4). Built from three alternating floor plans, the homes are characterized by their sloped, grassy lawns -- the long swatch of green uninterrupted by walkways or driveways. Back then, parking in front was prohibited; garages were off an alley behind the houses.

The city's original Water Purification and Filtration Plant (5) is on Railroad Avenue. In 1931, water from the Colorado River was pumped 2,000 feet through a six-mile-long water main. The plant, built in 1932, was necessary to purify and soften the water before its distribution.

The upper echelon of homes were built on Colorado and Denver streets to accommodate the Bureau of Reclamation engineers (6). Although the homes may appear small in size, they have full basements.

The brick house on the north corner of Denver Street and Nevada Way belonged to Walker Young (7), the chief construction engineer for the Bureau of Reclamation. Frank Lowry, the bureau's field engineer, lived next door.

Boulder City was built in a triangular shape, with the Bureau of Reclamation headquarters at the peak (8). Behind the mission-style building's east side is a covered pavilion that affords a beautiful view of Lake Mead. The slope leading down to the lake is now dotted with large, high-end homes, but during the construction of the dam, this area outside the city limits was used by squatters.

The Bureau of Reclamation building faces Wilbur Square Park (9). Boulder City was designed with the park as its focal point, and, today, the original sidewalks wind through this popular gathering place, which is shaded by large elm trees.

Wilbur Weed supervised the landscaping of the park, streets and public buildings, transforming the desert land into a green oasis. However, the park is named for another Wilbur: Ray Lyman Wilbur, who was secretary of interior under President Herbert Hoover.

The house on the corner of Park and Utah streets belonged to Boulder City's first manager, Sims Ely (10). During his 10-year tenure, Ely maintained strict control over the town, prohibiting gambling and the sale of hard liquor, and limiting the length of time a nonresident could visit. Today, Boulder City remains a gaming-free city, although prohibition laws were lifted in 1969.

Landscape architect Weed occupied the home on the corner of Park Place and Utah Street (11).

As you head west on Arizona Street back to Boulder City's business district, you'll pass St. Christopher's Episcopal Church (12) and the former Boulder City School (13), both of which date back to 1932. The Italian Renaissance revival-designed school building is now the City Hall.

Downtown was designed with covered sidewalks that provided shade and encouraged residents to walk from shop to shop.

Underneath its original arched canopy is the entrance to the Boulder Theatre, the first building in Boulder City to be air-conditioned and the largest movie house in Nevada when it was built in 1932 (14). Today, the theater is owned by Amy and Desi Arnaz Jr.

The homes in the neighborhood south of the downtown business district were constructed as temporary housing for married employees of Six Companies, the general contractor for the dam project (15). The three-room structures were called dingbat houses because of the quick and shoddy way they were constructed. It took two men less than a day and a half to build one.

After the dam was completed, the government planned to tear down the homes but many workers chose to stay in Boulder City. Most of these homes, which sold for as low as $350 when they went up for grabs in 1935, have since been renovated.

Mileage: About 2.8 miles.

Best time to go: Weekdays or Saturdays. (Many downtown businesses are closed Sundays.)