As we celebrate the United States’ 250th anniversary, the America250 initiative invites us to honor the massive public works that defined a generation. At Hoover Dam Rafting Adventures, a proud member of the Adventures Unbound family, we are recognizing the intertwined legacies of Hoover Dam and the Civilian Conservation Corps, two pillars of the New Deal that together created the recreation experience visitors enjoy in Black Canyon today.

Two New Deal Giants, One Canyon

The CCC did not build Hoover Dam. That feat belonged to Six Companies, Inc. and the Bureau of Reclamation, employing 21,000 workers between 1931 and 1936. But the dam and the CCC are inseparable stories of the same era. Hoover Dam was one of the first great Depression-era public works projects, and its success helped inspire President Roosevelt’s creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps in March 1933.

Once the dam was finished, the CCC took over a different mission: making the dam’s creation accessible to the public. CCC camps were established at Boulder City, designated SP-4 and SP-6, with Companies 573 and 2536. These enrollees transformed the raw desert around the dam into visitor-ready recreation. They graded and sanded Boulder Beach at Hemenway Wash, built bathhouses and floating boat docks, planted lawns and trees, and constructed the stone overlook wall where visitors first gazed at the engineering marvel and its new lake.

Their work helped establish the Boulder Dam Recreation Area on October 13, 1936, the first national recreation area in American history. A brand-new NPS management category was born from the partnership between the dam’s creation and the CCC’s labor.

Rafting Through Living History

Today, when you raft through Black Canyon below the dam, you pass remnants of the construction era: steel cables on canyon walls, concrete foundations, and metal rings bolted into rock faces. The recreation area that makes your trip possible, from the launch points to the managed shorelines, began with CCC enrollees who saw in this desert canyon not just an engineering achievement, but a place the public deserved to experience.

To learn more about how we are celebrating the diverse stories behind America’s national heritage, visit America250 at Adventures Unbound.