Chapter 4 59 THe DAM BUILDERS Before actual work could begin, the company refined its organization. Six Companies put together the Boulder City Company, headed commissary, and by Henry Kaiser, to handle related activities, and the housing, Hoover food, Dam Transportation Company, chaired by Steve Bechtel. General Superintendent Frank Crowe served in both subsidiaries, as did Felix Kahn and K. K. Bechtel. The corporation next created a construction committee with Hank Lawler at the helm, assisted by E. O. Wattis, Charles Shea, Harry Morrison, and W. A. Bechtel, Jr., and a purchasing committee consisting of Chairman Steve Bechtel, Les Corey, and Alan MacDonald. A streamlined plan linked the various components together. This arrangement underwent almost immediate revision. With so many high-powered builders on the Six Companies board, Crowe found himself answering to too many bosses, who often disagreed with one another. Worried that Crowe might quit in frustration, Charlie Shea persuaded his colleagues to stop intervening. Felix Kahn, who had been one of the worst offenders, agreed: “A board of directors can establish policy,” he mused, “but it can’t build a dam.” The board relinquished its privileges in favor of a four-member executive committee to coordinate with Crowe: Shea over field construction; Kahn over money, legal affairs, food, and housing; Steve Bechtel over purchasing, administration, and transportation; and the diplomatic Kaiser as chair. Few conflicts surfaced after that. As Six Companies awaited its mid-summer start on heavy construction, late spring and early summer of 1931 bustled with preparations. Temporary quarters went up to house the three hundred men who erected camps, removed loose rock from Black Canyon’s walls, and prepared areas for heavy equipment. A Stockton, California, builder raced to finish a highway into Boulder City from the dam site even as government contractors laid ten miles of track from the Union Pacific terminus at Boulder to the canyon rim. Late in June, electrical power coursed over a 240-mile transmission line from San Bernardino. Meanwhile, Six Companies crews built a $600,000 tram to connect the canyon to the Boulder City—Las Vegas railroad line. This double-track construction line, much of it through tunnels, ran along the canyon wall at the 720-