History of Arizona programs. Federal money started arriving with the Federal Emergency Relief Committee in 1930. Different agencies promoted aid to the unemployed, tuberculosis patients, transients, and illegal immigrants. The money ran out by 1931 or 1932, and conditions were bad until New Deal relief operations began on a large scale in 1933. Construction programs were important, especially Hoover Dam (originally called Boulder Dam), begun by President Herbert Hoover. It is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border with Nevada. It was constructed by the Federal Bureau of Reclamation between 1931 and 1936. It operationalized
Course of the Colorado River Colorado. Although the dams have mostly been erased by erosion, a small portion remains as Lava Falls, generally considered the most difficult and dangerous rapids for boaters on the Colorado River. The Colorado then swings sharply south and turns northwest north of Peach Springs, emerging from the Grand Canyon at the Grand Wash Cliffs, where it widens into the upper reaches of Lake Mead. The area also marks the general boundary between the Colorado Plateau and the Mojave Desert. Shortly west of that point it begins to form the border of Nevada to the north/west and Arizona to the south/east.