A $6,392,000 contract for the manufacture of eight 155,500-horsepower, 150-r.p.m., vertical-shaft hydraulic turbines for the powerplant has been awarded to the Baldwin-Lima Hamilton Corp. Additional contracts for generators and other adjuncts will be awarded later to equip the dam and powerplant. Glen Canyon’s first hydroelectric generating unit is scheduled to go on line in 1964.
RECREATION PLANS
The Glen Canyon of the Colorado River is an unusually placid, 162-mile reach from Hite, Utah, to Lees Ferry, Arizona. Major John Wesley Powell, who headed the first expedition down the river in 1869, named it Glen Canyon because of the occasional oak glens along its banks and at its junctions with tributaries.
The 186-mile-long Glen Canyon Reservoir (Lake Powell) will extend upstream into Cataract Canyon. The lake and adjoining lands have been established as the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area under the National Park Service of the Department of the Interior. This is the status of Lake Mead and its environs behind Hoover Dam.
The Park Service will soon undertake construction of recreational facilities for public use as Lake Powell begins to fill in 1962. The Glen Canyon Recreation Area promises to become one of the Nation’s outstanding tourist attractions.
Lake Powell, behind Glen Canyon Dam, will be flanked by varied and beautiful scenery.
The first placement of concrete—June 17, 1960.