Filmed on Wednesday, February 14 2024, I drive around Boulder City, NV to see what's going on.
Boulder City's sole reason for existence was the need to house workers contracted to build the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River (known commonly as Boulder Dam from 1933 to 1947, when it was officially renamed Hoover Dam by a joint resolution of Congress).
Men hoping for work on the dam project had begun settling along the river in tents soon after the precise site for the dam had been chosen by the Bureau of Reclamation in 1930. Their ramshackle edifices were collectively known as "Ragtown".
Boulder City was carefully planned through federal supervision as a model community, with Dutch-born urban architect Saco Rienk de Boer contracted to plan it. DeBoer had been a planner for Denver, Colorado, and was to design many towns and suburbs around the Rocky Mountain region. Because the Hoover Dam project itself represented a focus for optimism for a country suffering from the effects of the Great Depression, the town itself was to be an additional manifestation of this optimism.
Like early model company town Port Sunlight, the workers of Boulder City were under strict monitoring: alcohol was prohibited in the town until 1969 and gambling has been prohibited since the city's outset. In the case of Boulder City, the prohibition of alcohol and gambling was at least partly due to the proximity of Las Vegas, which had a notoriously rowdy vice district. Visitors to Boulder City were admitted by permit, and by 1932, there was a gatehouse through which all visitors had to pass.
The government did not relinquish control of Boulder City until 1959, when the town was incorporated. Boulder City's incorporation ceremony took place on January 4, 1960. The city council selected pharmacist Robert N. Broadbent as the city's first mayor.
The city charter, approved by the residents, prohibited gambling within the city limits. This provision still exists, making Boulder City one of only two locations in Nevada where gambling is illegal (the other is the town of Panaca).
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