Exploring History Through Genealogy

Employment at the Hoover Dam

During the Great Depression, the Hoover Dam Project provided work for a great many men who were in desperate need of it. Despite it being a very dangerous proposition, men flocked to Nevada in hopes of employment. Some 10,000 to 20,000 hopefuls made their way but only a little over 5,000 men were hired at any time between its construction between 1931 and 1936, with somewhere over 100 people meeting their death during their work. Seeing as so many people were there at the time, many of them being transient, it is understandable why records are hard to find on those who worked there.

The last time I saw my sister-in-law's grandmother, she told me that her father and uncles all worked on the Hoover Dam. That sent me on a crusade to find proof, which proved to be a daunting task. So first I scoured the internet trying to find a comprehensive index of all the workers. It took a while, but I finally found a CD made by Judith Sattler Irons called Hoover Dam Construction Workers and Pioneer Families of Boulder City, Nevada. This CD complies a list of all names, occupations, etc that she could find connected to the Hoover dam in over 15 years of research. Looking through the CD, however, I couldn't find any Snowballs. This isn't surprising, as she also says that she has not found any reference to her great grandfather, either. The only vague reference to Snowball that I found on the CD, was a nickname for a man named Mr. Roberts who was mentioned in the social column of the Los Vegas Review Journal. I have many doubts that this is the correct man.

Not having any luck here, I went to the censuses, and started taking note in both that of 1930 and 1940. The 1940 census is interesting in that it asks whether you had your own work or that with the government and how many weeks you worked that year. Now there were five Snowball brothers that were alive in 1930, so I started with the eldest. Allen was working as a miner in dam construction in Asuza, California, which lays in Los Angeles County. This was very promising for working on the Hoover Dam. At the time, he was the only brother living in California, the rest were still in Utah. Garr was truck farmer working for himself in 1930 in Clinton, Utah, and the other three brothers, Peart, Milton and Morrell, were living with their parents in Fairmount, Peart being the eldest at 18 and Morrell the youngest at 10; none of the three were working at the time.

In 1940, we find all five brothers, including the parents, in Riverside, California. Allen was a miner at a cement mine and had been working all year; Garr was a machinist at an airplane plant, Peart was a building carpenter, Milton was a grocery store clerk and Morrell was a Landscape Gardner. Except for Milton, all of them had been working all year, and Morrell only for the last 13 weeks. They all found this work on their own. Only their father was working off of Government assistance; he had been working as a plumber's helper and had only been working 26 months of the past year.

In order to pinpoint whether or not these brothers worked on Hoover Dam, I had to wander away from the census and branch out further into the internet. Since Allen had dam building experience in 1930, I started by looking into Asuza, California which lies on the northern edge of Los Angeles, just east of Pasadena. Interestingly enough, there were three dams built in the 1930's not even 10 miles north of Asuza: the Morris Dan, San Gabriel Dam 1 and San Gabriel Dam 2. Morris Dam was started in April of 1932 and finished by May 1934, while the two San Gabriel Dams were built from 1932 to 1939.

Looking into the other four brothers, it is very possible that they worked at least part of the time on these dams. I have been unable to find a precise date as to when they came to Riverside, California. According to Milton's obituary, they came to Riverside in 1927, but this doesn't coincide with the 1930 census and I believe it is an estimation on his part. He does state that they moved to Riverside before either he or his brother Peart went on their individual missions. Peart left for his mission, according to his daughter, Roberta, in 1932. He spent part of his mission in the Los Angeles Temple before transferring to Santa Barbara. I was not able to determine when he returned. Milton, on the other hand, left for 28 months from 1934 to 1936 to the Texas-Louisiana Temple for his mission. He was definitely back before 1940, because he tells in his memoirs of a huge flood that severely damaged his parents home, and how he went into the house to check it out. Doing some research, there was what is called The Great Los Angeles Flood of 1938. During this flood, the Los Angeles, San Gabriel and Santa Ana rivers all busted their banks. Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura Counties were all affected.

In conclusion, I find it safe to say that instead of the Hoover Dam, Allen Snowball, my sister-in-law's great-grandfather, worked on the three dams north of Asuza. I am not sure what Dam he worked on in 1930, as I could find no others in the area that line up time wise. It is possible that some preliminary work was being done in 1930, but I have found no evidence of this. It is unknown when Garr came to California, as he was not living with his parents and had his own farm in 1930. However, I believe that it is possible that he worked on the dams with Allen at some point. We find him working as a machinist in 1940, which is a skill he very well could have picked up during dam construction. It is also possible that Peart worked on the dam when he returned from his mission. How long he would have is unknown. As he was a building carpenter in 1940, I am reserving judgment until I find more evidence. I doubt that Milton worked on the dam. If he did, it would have been sporadic, as he left for his mission for 23 months during the peak times of construction. It is possible, though. Likewise, Morrell would have worked on them during the later years, as he would have been too young in the early 30's, only hitting 20 years of age in 1940.

I am not giving up my research, however. These are just my preliminary findings, and I need to do some more research: Road Trip!!!