Building Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam is one of the great tourist sites of America’s south west, and was one of the 20th century’s greatest engineering projects. Originally called Boulder Dam, it was renamed for Herbert Hoover, President when construction was begun and himself a famous engineer. The dam created Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, and is today visited by more than a million people a year. Hoover Dam is operated by the Bureau of Reclamation of the U.S. Department of the Interior, which maintains a Visitor Center and offers tours of the dam and power plant.
Category: West Coast US Attractions
Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum
How the Museum Started
Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum has been an iconic tourist attraction, first in France and then in London, since the end of the 18th century. Now a worldwide chain of 14 museums and growing, the museums are entitled Madame Tussauds without the apostrophe, and are part of Merlin Entertainments, the largest amusement company in the world except for Disney. The first Tussaud wax exhibits opened in Paris in 1795 and moved to London in 1802; in addition to the London museum, the Tussauds group has opened museums in Amsterdam, Bangkok, Berlin, Blackpool, Hollywood, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, New York City, Shanghai, Sydney, Vienna, Washington, D.C., Wuhan, Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing, Prague, Singapore, Orlando, San Francisco. The Tussauds portfolio includes about 50 other attractions, including Legoland, Sea Life Centers, Gardaland in Italy, The Dungeons, The London and Orlando Eye rides and Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, and Chessington World of Adventures in Britain.
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The Grand Canyon
History
The Colorado River has been at work on the Grand Canyon for about 17 million years, and has eroded a chasm 277 miles long, 18 miles wide and more than a mile deep. This part of northern Arizona was settled in about the 13th century BC by the Ancestral Puebloans, a Native American culture referred to by the present-day Navajo people as Anasazi or “Ancient Ones”. Several additional ancient native cultures migrated into the area between about 500 and 1500 AD. Several aboriginal nations were found when Europeans first arrived in the 15th century AD, chiefly the Navajo and also the Hopi, Havasupai, Halupai and Paiute.
Yellowstone National Park
The First National Park
Yellowstone was the first of America’s national park, and the first reserve in the Western world established to preserve an area of natural beauty in its pristine state. Every park and wildlife refuge and natural preservation area that has come later is the result of Yellowstone. To almost the same extent as the Statue of Liberty, the Old Faithful geyser in the park is a symbol of America and its natural wonders.