Even though as early as 1923 some favored Black Canyon as the dam's site, debate over the two canyons went back and forth with Boulder Canyon the favorite choice. But a1928 disaster in southern California started the confusion over the dam's name which was compounded in 1930 by Secretary Wilbur's announcement.

Many in congress who were opposed to the construction of Hoover Dam seized this disaster as their argument: what would happen on the Colorado River if the Boulder Canyon Dam collapsed like the St. Francis had? On May 29, 1928 Congress passed a joint resolution ordering the Secretary of the Interior to appoint a board of engineers to study the two Colorado River canyons and recommend one for construction. Known as the Sibert Board after chairman William L. Sibert, the report they issued on December 3, 1928 after on-site investigations recommended Black Canyon over Boulder Canyon. The dam site changed, but the name didn't: even though Hoover Dam was built in Black Canyon, the Act which authorized it, passed by Congress and signed by President Calvin Coolidge on December 21, 1928, was still called the Boulder Canyon Project Act.

The appropriation passed on February 14, 1931, and in the following four appropriation acts passed by Congress in 1932-33, it was Hoover Dam. For the remainder of Hoover's administration all official references to the dam, as well as tourist and other promotional material issued during this period called it Hoover Dam.



Promotional material issued during this period called it Hoover Dam.

The stock market crashed in 1929, and by the election year of 1932, Herbert Hoover was not a popular man. The thousands of homeless and jobless men and women who poured into southern Nevada to work on the Boulder Canyon Project blamed Hoover for the Depression, and the dam rising in Black Canyon had always been Boulder Dam to them despite government efforts to name it Hoover.

When Hoover stopped in Boulder City the evening of November 12, 1932 on his way back to Washington from California, he visited the mess hall where workers booed him. He also visited the dam site and made a short speech referring to the construction project by no name at all:

"This is not the first time I have visited the site of this great dam. And it gives me extraordinary pleasure to see the great dream I have long held taking form in stone and cement... This dam is the greatest engineering work of its character ever attempted at the hand of man... The waters of this great river, instead of being wasted in the sea, will now be brought into use by man".

Democrat Franklin Roosevelt took office on March 4, 1933, and he brought Republican Chicago lawyer Harold Ickes with him to replace Ray Lyman Wilbur, Sr. as Secretary of the Interior. Neither administration respected the other, and Ickes wasted no time removing Hoover's name from the Boulder Canyon Project.

"A number of insulting letters... have been coming in attacking me for changing the name of Hoover Dam to Boulder Dam. Some time ago Dr. [Elwood] Mead, Commissioner of Reclamation, asked me how I wanted this project designated, and I said that I wanted it called Boulder Dam. On Saturday [May 13, 1933] when I went out of Washington somebody apparently gave a story to the Associated Press that I had issued an order changing the name. The story carried a quotation from me which I never gave and which was very unconvincing. This is what started the criticism. As a matter of fact, I have never issued any official order. I have always called this Boulder Dam myself, as do many people, and I have continued that usage since I came to Washington. I consider it very unfair to call it Hoover Dam. Hoover had very little to do with the dam and in fact was supposed to be opposed to it. To call it Hoover Dam is to give him credit for something for which he is not entitled to credit, and ignore those who dreamed of this proposition and brought it to a successful conclusion after years of effort. The dam never was officially named Hoover. My predecessor [Ray Lyman Wilbur, Sr.] ordered it named Hoover Dam, but my understanding is that when a bill was introduced in Congress to name it Hoover Dam, the bill could not pass and the proposition was dropped until Wilbur, an appointee of Hoover's, named it after Hoover."

While it's true Ickes didn't issue an "official order," but only a memorandum, the effect was the same: all reference to "Hoover" Dam vanished in favor of "Boulder" Dam. Official sources, as well as tourist and other promotional material now read Boulder Dam. On September 30, 1935 Roosevelt and Ickes came to Black Canyon for the dam's dedication. On that day the Boulder City post office issued a commemorative stamp. Ickes wrote in his diary:

"A Boulder Dam memorial stamp was on sale here today for the first time. I have been anxious to have such a stamp issued because it seemed to me that it would also have the effect of fixing the name."



Boulder Dam dedicaton day stamp.

And in the rousing conclusion to his dedication speech, President Roosevelt hammered it home:

"Today marks the official completion and dedication of Boulder Dam ... . This is an engineering victory of the first order--another great achievement of American resourcefulness, skill, and determination. That is why I have the right once more to congratulate you who have builded Boulder Dam and on behalf of the nation to say to you, 'Well done.' "

"Resolved... that the name of Hoover Dam is hereby restored to the dam on the Colorado River in Black Canyon constructed under the authority of the Boulder Canyon Project Act... . Any law, regulation, document, or record of the United States in which such dam is designated or referred to under the name of Boulder Dam shall be held to refer to such dam under and by the name of Hoover Dam."