CHAPTER 4 The Dam Builders Zs HE ROARING TWENTIES came to a staggering halt in late October 1929. With unprecedented abruptness, panic seized Wall Street as more than twelve million shares of common stock passed across the block in a frenzy of selling. Within the week, solid companies by the score had absorbed catastrophic losses in the market, often exceeding two hundred points. A colossal sum of $40 billion in paper wealth disintegrated in the shaking hands of its holders—investors who had believed just weeks before that the inflationary spiral in stock prices would last indefinitely. Aftershocks of the crash struck to the core of American society as millions lost their savings, banks closed, factories locked up, unemployment exploded, mortgages were foreclosed, and tax revenues dwindled. During the next two dismal years, national income decayed to half in the face of five thousand bank closures and 32,000 company failures, all of which compounded the misery of more than twelve million unemployed workers and _ their families. In the midst of this alarming period, the Utah Construction Company embarked upon perhaps its greatest adventure, a bold attempt to transform the Southwest. In partnership with other firms, Utah prepared to bid on a massive concrete dam across the Colorado River at the Arizona-Nevada border. When completed, the dam would create a reservoir 120 miles long, containing five thousand gallons of water for every person on earth. The 700-foot45