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The World War II machine gun nest sits atop the hills on the Arizona side of the dam. |
By Bill Wagner
Each year Hoover Dam attracts more than 1 million visitors.
But only a very few are aware
of an interesting historical tidbit that is hidden in plain sight.
The solution to the mystery
is a machine gun bunker in an inaccessible spot high on a rocky bluff above the
overlook on the Arizona side. It’s a remnant of the post Pearl Harbor hysteria
that gripped the nation as the U.S. was plunged into World War II.
Seven decades ago, it was
added for security. Today, the abandoned remote location is probably just a
home for rattlesnakes and other critters.
“I’ve talked to long-time Las
Vegas residents who have been visiting Hoover for years, who never knew the
structure was there until I told them where to look for it,” said Pat Hicks, Ph.D.,
an archaeologist for the Bureau of Reclamation.
In addition to Hicks, Patrick
R. Jennings, Ph.D, a military historian for the National Park Service’s American
Battlefield Protection Program, and Jim Bailey, Ph.D. a Bureau
of Reclamation senior historian, were able to answer most questions about
the bunker or MGN, machine gun nest, as it is also referred to by governmental
entities when it was being proposed and built.
Hicks described the bunker as
“built of cast-in-place reinforced concrete and covered with a veneer of native
rock camouflaging. This camouflaging serves to blend the structure into
its surroundings so it is difficult to see from the air and the ground.”
The fact that there was a
turret, bunker or machine gun nest (take your pick) on one side of the dam begs
the question “What about the Nevada side?”
“Evidently there were two
turrets, one on the Nevada side and one on the Arizona side. Details are
sketchy at best on the Nevada-side turret, I could not find any info, and not
sure if one was even built there,” Bailey said.
“The rumors that there is
another pillbox at Hoover Dam start with a map drawn by a Reclamation employee
during WWII, who had registered concerns with the FBI and others about security
measures at the dam,” Hicks said.
The hand-drawn map has a cross
on the Arizona side that is labeled “MGN” where the WWII machine gun bunker
stands. It also has another location on the Nevada side of the dam west of the
main switch yard complex that’s marked with another cross. That has led to
speculation that pillbox/bunker existed on the Nevada side.
“We've done surveys out in
this area and haven’t located another formal pillbox/bunker structure,” Hicks
said.
“Some of the other historic
documents we have indicate there were a number of guards/sentries stationed in
various locations around the main switch yard complex … so it wouldn't surprise
me in the least that there was another machine gun emplacement out in this
area, but I suspect it was a simple informal ‘nest.’ ”
The bunker was occupied only
for a short time as “those in charge figured out the Western Defense Command
would not allow Japanese bombers to fly 200 miles inland to take out the power
houses and switch yards,” Bailey said.
Christine Pfaff, authored an
article in the summer of 2003 for the National Archives Prologue
Magazine Summer — “Safeguarding
Hoover Dam during World War II” http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2003/summer/hoover-dam-1.html.
Reports such as Pfaff’s
indicate concern over defending the dam was lukewarm at best among Army officials
and at high levels within the Roosevelt administration.
“Truth be told, the U.S. Army
never considered the dam under any credible enemy threat,” said Dr. Jennings. “The
Army only reacted when forced to by Nevada Senator Patrick McCarran, who
offered legislation proposing a fort be built in Boulder City.”
“The army decided to kill two
birds with one stone, and created Camp Williston (initially named Camp Siebert)
as a Military Police training post. The trainees, in turn, could guard the dam
before shipping off to war,” Jennings said.
A long-standing debate over
who actually built the bunker wasn’t resolved until a couple of years ago, more
than 70 years after construction.
Hicks said the questions were
answered when she spotted a notation in the “Boulder Canyon Project Annual
Project History” for 1941 (Vol. 12, Page 146) in a section titled “Miscellaneous
Protective Features.”
The details included: “…(c)
Concrete pill box near Arizona East gate. …”
“So, it’s pretty safe to say
now the WWII pillbox at Hoover Dam was built by Reclamation forces at the
request of the U.S. Army immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the
declaration of war on Japan.”
Hoover Dam is a modern
marvel. Looking over the spillway is breathtaking, but history comes alive if a
visitor looks up instead of down.
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