Belated birthdays are always worth celebrating, and the Hoover Dam, which turned 90 years old (!) on September 30, recently served as the venue for the Bureau of Reclamation’s 123-year anniversary!

To commemorate this incredible milestone, the Hoover Dam Visitor Center, which has been under remodeling since 2018, unveiled its most modern makeover, and the updates, like the dam itself, are something to behold.

Beginning October 1, 2018, the Hoover Dam Visitor Center, supported by $15 million in funding from the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act, aimed to transform the experience of visitors to the dam, drawing inspiration from the people who dedicated themselves to bringing electricity to the desert almost 100 years ago. Now, when guests visit the exhibit space, they are sent on a journey back in time.

Juxtaposed against the grandeur of the dam, the updated Hoover Dam Visitor Center is housed in a building that resembles a bronzed medieval castle perched hundreds of feet above the Nevada-side powerhouse.

Awaiting visitors is a sprawling exhibit hall complete with scale models of the Hoover Dam, artifacts from its past, and countless stories that tell about the enormous undertaking of the work itself.

Constructed in five-years (1931 – 1936) for the cost of $49 million ($811 million in 2024 dollars), the Hoover Dam required the efforts of more than five thousand workers. The builder’s stories are told in many forms, but they are unified in stressing how the Hoover Dam itself would have been impossible were it not for the workers who ensured its construction.

Visitors who pause to engage with exhibits learn about the “high scalers,” men who suspended from the top of canyons with ropes to remove loose rocks with jackhammers and dynamite. As falling objects were the most common cause of death on the dam site, the high scalers helped prevent potentially devastating incidents, yet also offered a form of spectacle for visitors who came to marvel at the dam’s construction, as the men would swing from enormous heights.

With artifacts like signage, clothing, and tools preserved and presented as part of the guest experience, attendees not only see history, but they get to engage with it, too. Scattered throughout the updated Hoover Dam Visitor Center are opportunities for visitors to develop deeper connections with the past, either by touching and exploring objects – jackhammers, wrenches, concrete buckets – or by watching interactive displays featuring actors portraying a range of roles set during the dam’s construction.

By traveling down a wood-lined tunnel, visitors can pause at floor-to-ceiling length screens, which depict scenes from the dam’s history interspliced with ‘workers’ from the era providing deeper insight into their lives or the tasks at hand.

All of these pieces working in tandem – set against the incomparable scenery of the Hoover Dam – makes for a unique experience that stands alone. Yet, the lessons it provides to organizations running visitor experiences is clear: engage on every level.

The Hoover Dam Visitor Center provides something for everyone, whether you want to dive into the technical details of the dam’s engineering, the story of its workers, or marvel at the relics, models, and equipment that built one of the United State’s most iconic infrastructure projects.

By utilizing multiple ways to tell its story, the Hoover Dam Visitor Center doesn’t force guests through a strict narrative journey, rather visitors are left to their own devices and can explore and engage with the exhibits at a self-set pace. This form of user-driven storytelling allows each visitor to have a unique experience that shapes their understanding of the Hoover Dam’s formative history.

Next year, NHA’s Clean Currents will be coming to the Southwest! Join us in Phoenix from September 22-24, 2026, for the water power industry’s premier conference + trade show!

Learn more HERE.