History of the National Park Service and multi purpose river basin development programs like the Tennessee Valley Authority which began in the 1930s and spread to river valleys in all parts of the country after World War II. Lake Mead was the first National Recreation Area. The Boulder Canyon Project Act, passed in 1928, authorized the Bureau of Reclamation to construct Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. Work began in 1931 and the dam, highest in the Western Hemisphere, was completed in 1935. The next year, under provisions of an agreement with the Bureau of Reclamation, the National Park Service assumed responsibility for all recreational activities
Black Canyon Diversion Dam Black Canyon Diversion Dam Black Canyon Diversion Dam (National ID # ID00282) is a dam in Gem County, Idaho. The concrete dam was originally completed in 1924, then re-constructed between 1951 and 1955, by the United States Bureau of Reclamation. Its structure has a height of 183 feet, and a length of 1902 feet at its crest. It impounds the Payette River for the diversion of water into the Black Canyon and North Side Main irrigation canals, and the generation of about 2 megawatts of hydroelectric power, part of the Bureau's larger Boise Project. The dam is owned and operated