Tom got a job with Mr. Le Tourneau, and so
he went to work the very next
day, the fourth of July, just with a shovel. The men would
go to work, and so many of the men were passing out with heat
stroke that they decided that they would go to work at 4:00
in the morning and work until noon. Nobody worked from noon
until 4:00 p.m. because that was the heat of the day. Another
crew come on at 4:00 and worked till midnight with searchlights.
At that time they didn’t know anything about taking
extra salt, and people were sweating out all the salt in their
bloodstream, and they were passing out.
We had been camping down in the river bottom, and there had
been 3 women die right around me the twenty-sixth day of July.
[The first construction workers at the dam site were forced
to live on the floor of Black Canyon. Living conditions there
were not suitable to human habitation. Temperatures sometimes
reached 125 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer of 1931. Strong
winds, cloudbursts, and flooding were other natural conditions
of the area.- -ed.] |
|
National
Archives and Records Administration