The People Who Made It Happen
The Building of a Dam
The construction of Roosevelt Dam involved several thousand people over the course of the project. Hiring was straightforward; a foreman would simply size up a man and decide if he could do the work. Jobs requiring diverse skills were plentiful. Stone and timber cutters, canal builders, and horse and mule tenders were but a few of the employment opportunities. For their efforts, common laborers earned $2.50 per day while powdermen, blacksmiths and masons made $4 to $ 5. Under harsh and hazardous conditions, workers blasted rock from sheer walls. They also swung picks, shoveled and hauled tons of rock.
The original town of Roosevelt (now under Roosevelt Lake) housed hundreds of people. By 1907, Roosevelt had a baseball team, bowling alley, ice-cream parlor, theatre and a school. Workers gathered in labor camps, living in tents, tent houses or small adobe buildings, sometimes with their wives and children.
Marker can be reached from The Apache Trail (Arizona Route 88 at milepost 241).
Courtesy hmdb.org
