From the Las Vegas Review-Journal (Henry Brean):
Franklin D. Roosevelt made a return trip to the dam he dedicated 75 years ago, albeit in the form of historical impressionist Peter Small. Speaking before a crowd of more than 100 people, the long-dead president said the dam “still looks brand new as if it hasn’t aged at all.”[…]
Michael Connor, commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, said the dam “conquered what had been previously unconquerable”: a famously fickle Colorado River prone to damaging floods and crop-killing dry spells. Before Hoover tamed it, Connor said, the silty river was often described as “too thick to drink and too thin to plow.”
Anne Castle, the Department of the Interior’s assistant secretary for water and science, used the occasion to preach conservation. “Growth has stressed water supplies, even with this massive dam,” she said. “We can’t let water become the next endangered species.”
More coverage from MyFoxPhoenix.com. From the article:
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation celebrated the Hoover Dam’s diamond anniversary on Thursday with a re-creation of the dedication ceremony that started it all…
“This is the one dam within Reclamation that’s truly known around the world,” said Ken Rice, area manager for Hoover and the other federal dams along the lower Colorado River. “People here take pride and ownership in it.”
More Colorado River basin coverage here.