Dam of its scale had ever been attempted; on completion, it was the largest masonry dam in the world. The Hoover Dam is a massive concrete arch-gravity dam, constructed in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the US states of Arizona and Nevada between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression. In 1928, Congress authorized the project to build a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power. The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium called Six Companies, Inc. Such a large concrete structure had never been
Course of the Colorado River of this water is used for irrigation in the Mexicali Valley, one of Mexico's most fertile agricultural regions. Below the Morelos Dam the Colorado forms the international border for a short distance, between Baja California and Arizona, before reaching the Southern International Boundary at San Luis Rio Colorado, where it crosses entirely into Mexico. For the remainder of its course to the Gulf, the river forms the boundary between Baja California (west) and Sonora (east). "River", however, is a misnomer as the Colorado is dry or small stream most of the year, due to its flow being almost completely exhausted