Content area
Full Text
America's Master Dam Builder: The Engineering Genius of Frank T. Crowe by Al M. Rocca. Lanham, Maryland: University Press ofAmerica, 2001; 414 pages; $49.
Hoover Dam brings many tourists to Colorado, and the visitors gape at the sheer size of the 66-year-old concrete marvel. For civil engineers, however, it is more than a tourist attraction. As one of the greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century it comes close to being a pilgrimage site.
If Hoover Dam is a mecca of sorts, then Frank T. Crowe is its Muhammad. The great engineer and dam builder was the man most responsible for building the great structure, serving as superintendent of construction and, years before the project began, as an allaround driving force.
Ostensibly a biography, America's Master Dam Builder: The Engineering Genius of Frank T Crowe is more a chronicle of Crowe's...