With the Colorado River safely diverted around the canyon, construction could begin on the actual concrete arch dam. The contract was given to the Merritt-Chapman & Scott Corporation for an "astoundingly low" $107,955,552, about $30 million less than USBR's own estimate. Then, right before construction began, about 750 workers organized a strike because of a wage reduction due to the completion of public facilities at Page. In December 1959, wages were raised by $4 a day, quelling the strikers. Concrete placement started on June 16, 1960, and started at a sluggish but growing pace. In 1962 the workforce topped out at nearly 2,500 employees laboring on the dam. Construction would ultimately claim eighteen lives and injure numerous other workers, but contrary to popular myth, no workers were buried alive in the concrete. Cement needed to make concrete for the dam came from the Phoenix Cement Company plant constructed for the purpose in Clarkdale, south of Flagstaff.