any provision of the u.s. cost tuition and create a video illustrating why it is important. >> working with our cable partners, the c-span cities tour takes american history tv on the road twice each month as we explore the history of selected american cities. this weekend we are airing highlights from a view of the -- few of the places we have visited this year. >> it is 602 feet tall, one -- two thirds of allow from one into the other. 883 feet thick, thicker than it is tall. so when we look at the dam, we get the idea of how massive shasta dam is. it is like a 60 story building standing in front of us. it weighs 15 million tons. today, we are standing at shasta dam, the second-largest concrete dam in the united states.

it was built in 1938 to 1945 and forever changed the state of california and beyond. the central valley of california runs right here from redding, california, 450 miles to bakersfield. it is about 50 miles wide and it is a big, flat valley. historically, century after century we had some very wet years and dry years. in the wet years, we get about 75% of the state's precipitation right up here. all that rainfall and snow melt when washed down into the valley and cause massive flooding. the native americans that lived here prior to us would live by the river and go to higher ground during flood seasons. as floodwater would received, it deposited rich soil throughout the valley and decade after decade after decade of this happening you got a very thick layer of good soil and fairly flat because as water receipts, so youived -- receeds,

have this big valley with wonderful soil, and long growing years, so the missing part was reliable water source and that is where shasta dam came into play. the collect the water, it goes into some of these canals and we are supplemented by smaller ones the serous, the western slope of the sierras and further down south along the rivers. that water has turned california into an agricultural megaplex. california is one of the largest agricultural producers in the world, but certainly in the united states. this is what comes from the general treasury, it is called appropriated funds. we offended by the federal government. it is a federal facility. the way this works is we produce power. we sell water contracts to agriculture and water districts. we have obligations to them and obligations for power that we try to meet.

as those are sold, the money goes back to the treasury and we as a specific entity quebec to the treasury and say we need as much money to operate shasta dam, so we get some back. we generate far more money than we need to operate shasta. in studying the topography for a dam, they are looking for a big basin, something able to hold a lot of water, so a natural valley. you also want to look for the water is flowing. we are situated here at shasta or get about 75% of the state's precipitation to the north of us. by building the dam here, it provides flood control to the city of redding, the largest in shasta county, and all the way to the bay area. you look for an area where the water is, for the natural basin. at shasta, they found three sides that would be potentially good sites and this was selected as the best because of the size

of the basin and proximity north of redding. it would provide a control for redding as well. this is the lobby to the power plants. in the early days of construction and when the dam was finished, this was open to the public. you would be a will to drive down, come in here and uses as a central waste to start visiting shasta dam. after 9/11, it was closed down and we were not allowed to bring the public into this area. fortunately back and 2008, we were able to open back up to the public for the full tour of shasta dam. when we redid the room, we remain -- maintain all the vermont marble originally placed, the doorways, the furniture from the early 1950's. we kept it because it is cool to bring you back into the day when it was first operational to the public. it kind of takes you back into the early 1950's place.

one of the things we like to do in this room is explained and talk about the construction of shasta dam. shasta dam was built in 1938 to 1945, so the depression era project, part of roosevelt's new deal, an opportunity for people back to work in the depression. as they started building the dam, there were going to be 4700 jobs to build it. a lot of folks coming out here, desperate, really needing a job and came out here in hopes of getting one of those 4700 jobs during halfway through construction, however, we got involved in world war ii and everything changed. we went from being a depression-era economy to a wartime economy and everything kind of took a flip. it was about building a water storage facility to rent flats. during the war he became about power. because a lot of shipyards popped up as a result of the war and they needed electricity to operate or they were no good. anything that would produce a

significant amount of power like , the shasta power plants, was needed. it was given top priority. rating. that meant the guys that were too were deferred from draft and they would stay here and help the country by building this dam and making sure it was operational. when they came to start building, one of the things in a deal with was the railroad. the southern pacific railroad ran along the western bank of the sacramento to the power plant and continued on, so job one was to move the train. they built a tunnel that was 1800 feet long. they started at both ends and work their way toward the middle. remember back in 1939, there was no gps. they were not things like that they could use. you have two different elevations and their building a tunnel like this. they met in a spot about the size of a dinner plate. the photo we have is them shaking hands from one end to

the other when they broke through. so the engineering on that was amazing. at that did was allow the train, instead of running to the middle of the jobsite, to be detoured around temporarily as they realized it would all become shasta lake at one time. they needed to temporarily detour the train while starting excavation work. as a started blasting, the train was running through it. imagine being a passenger on that train. you would be driving through one of the biggest construction sites in the country at the time. right before they were ready to start building the dam, they had the 1940 flood. the flood of 1940 in downtown redding was underwater. this was taken where the turtle bay museum and other landmarks and redding stands today, but back then, it was a wild river that turned into a giant lake

and you can imagine all the flooding does cause problems at the jobsite. amazingly enough, february of 1940 to july, five months, they got that cleaned up and were ready to start building the dam. the way the process work was they brought gravel and sand from redding on a 9.6 mile long conveyor belt that had to be built. all that material was brought to the site along with cement and water from the river, mixed at the base of over become the dam and that concrete was delivered and eight yard buckets. they radiated out from the main tower, delivering concrete, so a series of blocks at any given time. as it was delivered, gentlemen, like joe chesnutt here, would pick up a compactor and his job was to pack the concrete down and make sure there were no air

bubbles. you can see it is a pretty stiff, dry mix. it is not very fluid. so if you end up with an air pocket, that would end up collapsing on itself is you put more weight on top of it. his job was important. imagine doing that all day long. they would pay big box, $.90 an hour or $7.20 a day to do that in the summer sun, rain it did , not matter. once it started, to did not stop for 4.5 years. 20 47. -- 24/7. by this time point, they had built a permanent home for the train and use that same tunnel they used for the train as a diversion tunnel to move the water through so they could dry out this area for the spillway. they did this spillway the same section. block on top of block.

once they got to write about here, but placed the four lower valves. those valves allowed the river to take its natural course and they could plug up that tunnel. you might think why would they , do that? what they wanted to do was get the lake full. frank crowe the superintendent , in charge of construction, same guy who builds hoover dam in they other large dams country thought the most prudent , thing was to start filling the late as they were building it. he was an engineer and knew his stuff. frank crowe felt the dam was well within the area that the lake would need to fill. as a rebuilding of the spillway the water was chasing them as , they filled the spillway. as they did that, they stored enough water by 1944 to generate power for the first time, one year before the dam was completed. as the generator is spinning, it is producing 142 megawatts. that one generator is capable of

taking care of 135,000 homes. they will run as needed to deliver water. as our water delivery allotment comes in and we are told we need to release this much water, it will average that over a 24 hour period delivering water in , conjunction with water and energy demand. for example, there will not release a budget night so they will need in the day when there is electricity. power comes in the byproducts but they try to coordinate. over here we have a fully functioning machine shop. all original american-made 1940's equipment that is used to fix pieces of generators that might need repair. you are not going to go to the local hardware store or home depot in figure pieces you might need if a generator goes out and needs to be replaced they can manufacture or tool different pieces here for repair. in front of us, this is a giant

laith so they can tool a giant shaft if they need to. we have russes and drills -- that theyd drills would use, so as things need to be repaired, they can take care of that in the machine shop. when the dam was built, there were 9 million people living in california. today, we are pushing 40 million people. a lot more people, same amount of water. when you add global warming to that component of possibly becoming a factor for flood control we have to , deal with less water in different places and we still have all these people that need water to live. i think all of those things will make facilities like this even more important. and how we manage them and the supply of water even more important.