Black Canyon of the Colorado Black Canyon of the Colorado The Black Canyon of the Colorado is the canyon on the Colorado River where Hoover Dam was built. The canyon is located on the Colorado River at the state line between Nevada and Arizona. The western wall of the gorge is in the El Dorado Mountains, and the eastern wall is in the Black Mountains of Arizona. The canyon formed about 15 million years ago during the Miocene Basin and Range uplift. Black Canyon gets its name from the black volcanic rocks that are found throughout the area. Just south of the Hoover Dam on
Steamboats of the Colorado River west side of the river sixty five miles above Fort Mohave near what was then considered the high water limit of navigation. George A. Johnson came up river and made a deal to supply the mines with his steamboats at $100 a ton, a lower price than the $240 a ton charged for overland freight across the Mojave Desert from Los Angeles. That fall news of the strikes brought a flood of miners to the canyon. Several camps were founded in the canyon. San Juan, or Upper Camp were at the top of the canyon, near modern Nelson, Nevada. Midway