A Look at the New Hoover Dam Bridge

This collection of photographs from Smithsonian documents the construction of the recently opened bypass bridge at the Hoover Dam.

1 minute read

December 17, 2010, 11:00 AM PST

By Nate Berg


The new bridge was photographed by Jamey Stillings over the course of many months, showing various points of its construction.

"[T]he bridge is a worthy complement: it carries a four-lane highway almost 900 feet above the river, and it rests on the longest concrete arch in the United States, 1,060 feet. It was built to circumvent the dam-crossing stretch of U.S. Route 93, which was a narrow, tortuous and accident-prone kink in the designated NAFTA highway corridor between Mexico and Canada. Tourists can still drive across the dam, but others will be routed over what has been named the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, commemorating, respectively, a popular 1970s Nevada governor and the former Arizona Cardinals football player killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004 while serving in the U.S. Army."

Tuesday, December 14, 2010 in Smithsonian

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