very fact they hear two women speaking in that format has really affected them. >> typically history has been the woman behind the man and what we get to do here is talk about the men behind the women but focus on her life and tell the story from her point of view. the fact we get to do that, we hope and inspire people to do the same thing. >> that's sunday at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span's q and a. you can listen as a podcast where you get your podcast. >> america's development can be traced through its public works progress from big -- from bridges and dams to rails and roads, these helped expand settlement and grow the country's economy. join us as we visit cities

across the u.s. to highlight projects that connect america. >> we're at the promontory summit in utah at golden pike national historic site. i am walking you over to where the transcontinental railroad was completed. this spot right here marked by the -- is within inches of where the original sermon he was held in 1969. included is a plaque that lists many of the dignitaries of that company, central pacific in particular. cific in particular. the big four are all marked. another thing you can see at the site is the connection with the resources that would have been available to the local companies building the railroad. we have mocked up everything to make it as authentic as possible. on the west side you are going to see precut ties.

the center had plenty of wood in the sierra nevada's, and because of that he had sawmills. whereas the union pacific coming from the east had to hand cut their ties wherever they could find would. not a lot of. available in many of the areas, so they would split them. you can see right here how they would just cut them and bring them down where they could. the transcontinental railroad was happening at the end of the victorian age, going into the industrial age. there was a perfect time for the united states, because when that transcontinental railroad was completed, it made a major impact in the industrial development. complete construction was about 6.5 years, so, from 1862-1869. the period just before they started building the railroad

would have been when a lot of people were coming out after the gold rush. we were also in the middle of the civil war, when the act was signed to start this project. abraham lincoln really wanted to have access to all the materials that were available in the sierra nevada, including the gold and silver. he chose that time to complete the act and start building the transcontinental railroad. obviously in the middle of the war, the sense of the country was a big, major factor that was making the decision. they wanted to be with you get troops across the country in a quicker period of time, they also wanted to cut the time of shipping raw goods that would be made in the factories back east, and also finished goods that would go back to the new states out in the west. 4-6 months around the horn, although it down around south america was hopefully going to be cut to about two weeks.

that was abraham lincoln's goal, to be a would to get troops across the country in two weeks. it ended up that it was 7-10 days that they would get things across the country, once it was completed. the two companies building the railroad were the central pacific railroad company that started in sacramento, and the union pacific railroad company in omaha, nebraska. one of the problems the whole time is the companies were building before they got paid, so they were almost always in debt, always worrying about money. the other problem was a resources. huge problem. if you ever traveled across wyoming and nebraska, there is not a lot of would. underneath the rails, wooden ties had to be based on the road just for the railroad. he also had to build buildings for water towers and the infrastructure of operating the railroads across the country. another huge problem because

they were in the civil war, was finding manpower. at the end of the civil war, it actually was a huge help for the railroad companies because you had veterans looking for a way to provide for their livelihood, and there was a ready employer is the railroad companies. for the central pacific, this was an even bigger concern because, especially early on in the beginning of the building of the railroads, a lot of workers would just come on long enough to obtain money to go and mine in the gold and silver fields or mines. that is why the chinese were eventually brought on as an experiment. 50 chinese workers, initially to test them. they didn't think they would be able to would stand 10-12 hour days, six days a week.

there was also a lot of criticism and i guess you could say, racism against the chinese, that they overcame those doubts and did a fantastic job. well over 11,000 chinese were employed by the end of the transatlantic railroad by both companies. both companies were being paid land-grant and to permit bonds to build and he did not want to give up ground to each other. instead of coming together and finding out where they would meet, they continued to build asked one another until the federal government stepped in and said we will not pay you anymore until you figure out where you are going to meet. that is when they selected the spot we are standing right beside. it gave both the companies 30 miles of track they had to finish in the last month. >> so you are looking down over some of the wetlands of the great salt lake's. two major factors influence the

path across the whole route. one was finding fresh water available every 15-30 miles to refill the tank that would surprise the water for the boilers on the steam locomotive. another thing is they needed to stay under the 2% grade, which is only a hundred feet in elevation change every mile. as they were trying to find their way through utah, one of the challenges they faced was a large saltwater lake. it would not allow any freshwater, but they had to find a path around it. they were thinking about going right through the wetland, but one of the engineers brought up the lake level rises, so they decided to come up on the foothills north of the lake. even though that would present more challenges with the grading, to prevent flooding and damaging of the actual railroad. another thing you can see, if you look down just below us, you can see the other grade.

i mentioned earlier that the two companies building across the country passed each other through utah with grade work because they did not want to give up money the federal government was providing. so down below us is the old union pacific grade, which would have been a benefit earlier, just less than a year -- which would have been abandoned earlier, just less than a year before they sold their rights to the central pacific company. the central pacific company had a much higher quality grade, so when they bought the rights from the union pacific, they switched over to their grade. and that is where we are standing. we are coming up to the last cut that was made by the union pacific in their approach to the summit valley right here. in a minute we will be able to look down and you can actually see, in order to get through different elevation changes, they would cut through the rocks and blast with powder making the

channels they could actually build the railroad through. these hills up on the far side of this cut is from the 1860's. this is rock that was stacked up. you can see they even put some bigger rocks to act as a walk, -- as a retaining wall took a prevent from collapse. it has lasted almost 450 years now. [dings] [train passing] >> as they approached the actual ceremony and figured out the spot here at the summit, a lot of people were interested in knowing when they would

complete. they had a lot of reporters from all over the country that came out with the dignitaries from the two companies. and individuals from other railroad companies that would connect from that line and benefit with other businesses from that. the date set for the completion, when the federal government made these companies set when they would finish and where, is may 8. we hold our anniversary every year on may 10 because there was a delay in the union pacific getting out here so they were not able to hold the ceremony until that day. when they actually help the ceremony, one of the neat parts of the story, they had the ceremonial spikes, which gives us our name, golden spike national historic site. they had two solid gold, the solid silver, and then the iron, silver and gold spike. because of the precious metal,

they had to pre-drill holes and place those precious metal spikes in these holes. we often get asked where the golden spike was. we actually don't know which position it would've held. they would have placed those in as part of the ceremony and then tapped them. they tapped them as out of the ceremony but then removed all about. there was a last spike that was driven. when you hear the driving of the last spike, it wasn't the gold spike, it was a regular iron spike. the telegraph wires around the spike. when they drove it in, if sent a broadcast, live coverage across the country. it was celebrated author of the nation. during the ceremony, one of the famous pictures you often see is the champagne photo. there were two locomotives here on site. we actually have replicas that operate on a daily basis throughout our summer season.

they are known as the central pacific jupiter and the union pacific number 119. they have become probably the two most famous locomotives. it is kind of a cool way to commemorate that. after the ceremony, a lot of pictures were taken, and then the operation of the railroad became huge throughout the country. because they were trying to increase time and efficiency within these companies themselves, eventually, the line that was passing through this area was bypassed. they build a trestle bridge and causeway street across the desk straight across the great lake from the nevada-utah order, straight across the point of the promontory mountains. but cut about 80 miles of extra time, trouble and money.

it became a huge have for transporting troops and materials and supplies across the country, and would just have trains every hour coming and unloading huge amounts of supplies and people. and it became a major city, major thoroughfare for moving across the country. >> as railroads and steam engines connected the country in the 1800s,. roadways and the automobile would do so in the 1900s. right now we will visit also, oklahoma, to ride one of the country's most famous highways, u.s. route 66. >> my book, "route 66, the mother road," came out in 1990. i wrote the book because i was totally inspired by the fact that people kept talking about route 66 in the past tense. and a new full well that i knew

-- i knew full well that 85% of the road is still here, after all eight states. some stretches are even better than ever. so i wrote that book unabashedly and as a love letter to the road, and more importantly, to the people on the road. route 66. eight states, three time zones, chicago to santa monica. the urban experience on route 66 is far different than it would be out in say, the high desert in new mexico or arizona or the panhandle of texas, or the ozarks in missouri, or even the far central illinois where the road gets wide open. when it goes through a small town, like hamill, illinois or

whatever, it is still main street in that town. but here, it is urban. so what you will see on 11th street, a.k.a. route 66 in tulsa, traditionally, there were a lot of things related to the roads such as automotive businesses, garages. some small motels. but you don't necessarily see the kitsch traveler tourist attractions that you will see out in the country, like the world's largest totem pole, or the blue whale, or the natural sights like the painted desert and the petrified forest, that type of thing. so across the street, you have this public school. you have all the route 66 states up there.

america's main street around the corner. there is more of this mural. tallies is when the road worries come in from all over the world. just a great place. you're going to see businesses like that on this stretch. that, if nothing else, put route 66 on their sign, be at the car wash or the used car lot or a sandwich shop or something. now we have the city of tulsa. it snakes up the intersection of it. right now we are at the centennial plaza, an incredibly important point on route 66 and an important spot for the city of tulsa, really. this plaza is dedicated to route 66 and a special detail an

adopted tulsan like me, who loved the road. considered the father of route 66. that ford, with his wife and his daughter, and he is driving along this new road but he has helped to create that was unveiled in 1926. and he has come across a team ster coming out of the oil patch hauling pipe and crude. he is startled by this ford -- he is not used to seeing a sliver coming down the road. it represents the old and the new meeting. that is why this point is so important here to the city and to the road, because this is where we call east meets west.

right here, on the banks of the arkansas river. this is where it all happened for tulsa. stevens avery -- it is often overused, but he really was a renaissance man. he was born in pennsylvania, came to missouri as a young man with his family, came down into old indian territory, lived for a while in veneta, which is now a route 66 town. essentially we associate him in his adult life with tulsa, where he became an important civic and business leader. most of all, he believed in roads. he liked roads. he came along in a time when we were having the good roads movement. we were starting to get more and more automobiles. than henry ford came along with his assembly-line and made

automobiles that everybody could afford. 18 star can buy one, a farmer could buy one -- a teamster could buy one, a farmer could buy one. they weren't just play toys for the rich anymore. america's love affair with the internal combustion engine that began and i don't think that affair has ever ended, sometimes much to my dismay. the point is we didn't have paved roads. people like avery got involved in this good roads movement. he became a highway commissioner. they tried to get as many roads, roads paved as possible. his biggest triumph was rough 66, which came along in 1926 when we were building longer roads, interstage roads. that is what happened with route 66. it is a road that connected chicago, ran down through the

state of illinois, across mississippi and st. louis, down the ozark plateau, nip to the corner of kansas, came right across the state, more miles than any other state, 410, through the texas line, across the panhandle through northern new mexico through northern arizona, into the great mohave of california, up to barstow, san bernardino, than all the way to pasadena. down through hollywood to santa monica to the pacific ocean. 2400-plus miles, 8 states, 3 time zones. america's main street was born. i think the best way to look at route 66 is to look at the time period. the layers of the road. the different generations of the road that came to be from 1926

to this very day. it was a road that was born, if you will, when the nation was between wars and on the wagon. the roaring 20's. the time of great stunts. flagpole-sitting, marathon dancing, the trust on a bootleg -- charleston bootleg booze. when the 1930's hit, it was a one-two punch of the great depression, and the dust bowl out in this out of the country, really west of us, that is when the road began paying its dues. that is when it earned the moniker that john steinbeck gave it in the immortal novel "the grapes of wrath," in 1939, the name i chose for the subtitle in my book "route 66, the mother road." a nurturing road. a ribbon of highway that took in these dustbowl of migrants from western oklahoma, the texas

panhandle, the southern plains, and in this part of the country, took in broken tenant farmers, unemployed, and they got on the road and headed west following the scent of orange blossoms and lemons, going to work in those fields in california where they were met with ridicule and covered with billy clubs and spittle by border guards and degraded and reviled as okies or arkies, from arkansas. when in truth, that word, okie, should have been and still is a badge of courage, because it stood and still stands for the resiliency of the oklahoma people. it transition right into the next incarnation, the warriors. even before we got in the war on route 66 and other races in this

country, we were training troops to take on the axis. up in miami, oklahoma, on route 66, we trained cadets, 18, 19 years old to fight in the battle of britain. some of them died in accidents up there. you go to miami today on the graveyards, you will see graves of young airman who will be 19 years old forever, with the union jack flag by each gravestone. in western oklahoma, fort we know, right on that concrete route 66, the graves of young german and italian soldiers who died of their wounds in a pow camp during the war. up in the mohave, general patton training his desert warriors to take on ramo in north africa. that is was applied those prisoners for our prison camps,

those captured troops from north africa, from italy and from sicily. it was a remarkable time because there was no civilian traffic. they were not making automobiles for civilians. there was higher and gasoline -- tire and gasoline rationing. a whole nation was involved in the war and so was route 66, filled with troop convoys and gis for one last visit before getting shipped out. the war ended in 1945. and what happened? america had prosperity, of course. those gis came home. what did they come home to? to the g.i. bill. they got to go to college. they got to buy a house, they married there sweetheart. we had the baby boom. everybody got a brand-new car. we had to show our family where we trained, at the great lakes,

or down in oklahoma, or out in texas, or in california. and people took to the road. that wartime blended right into peacetime, into the great long heyday of route 66. the late 1940's, throughout the 50's, 60's, even into the 70's. even after president eisenhower in 1956 signed actually the death warrant for the road, the interstate highway act which led to the creation of five interstate highways that tried to take route 66's from chicago to santa monica. but it was not until the mid-1980's that the last shields went down. that is when the certification was complete. the federal shields were down. now we have the interstates -- 55 and 44 and 40 and 50 and 10.

route 66 went into a bit of a limbo. it is so many things, that is, the road is so many things. much more than just the physical road itself. for many people it is not, for many people, it is just nostalgia and traveling. buying souvenirs. and that's fun, whatever it takes. but for many people, it is a reminder that progress is good. route 66 can no longer handle the traffic, but along its progress, it gives some things up. >> the great depression would give rise to many public works projects funded by fdr's new deal legislation. congress established the tennessee valley authority to provide jobs and electricity to impoverished states in the rural southeast.

>> more than 300 years ago, the first pioneers crossed the oceans to a new world. i promise -- a promise was calling, the promise of a land where a man could build his own house, raise his children in freedom. they carved from the wilderness an empire of industry. higher standards of living. -- and higher standards of living. -- new and higher standards of living. ♪ in one of the great river valleys of america, something went wrong. >> when you look at the assessment of the conditions of the country, he identifies the south as the number one economic problem in the country. the appalachian region itself was probably the most heavily affected areas in the south.

it was probably the poorest, most isolated area of the south. very little electricity. folks were living in conditions that were very much like a mid-19th century conditions. when the sun went down, they went to bed. >> they struggled to scratch their living from the reluctant soil. >> if you were a farmer, going through droughts in the 1920's and early 1930's. they were having serious erosion problems. you would go from the drought to heavy rain. >> destruction from the sky. >> without the flood control, you have this massive, destructive floods that come out of the river valleys, out of the appalachian mountains. rivers like the ocoee. of course, those would feed all of the creeks and rivers. so you had a cycle of drought, and serious, destructive floods.

a lot of loss of life in these valleys up and down the tennessee river valley. it is a serious economic problem and a serious serious safety issue. >> we are at the chickamauga dam on the tennessee river, a tennessee valley authority project from 1940. the dam was dedicated in 1940 by franklin roosevelt as part of a larger network of dams built up and down the tennessee river between 1933 and the 1940's. >> creating the tva, the tennessee valley authority. president roosevelt told the nation that the project would set the example of planning not for this generation alone, but for all generations to come. >> the tennessee valley authority was one of the early new deal projects, really a project and the concept that had been under consideration for

some years before franklin roosevelt became president. a nebraska senator was looking to help improve the quality of life in the tennessee river valley, to bring flood control, to generate some electrical power, and to improve the lives of the people living in the tennessee value. it is a serious attempt at remaking the social and economic lives of the people living in the river valley, all the way from knoxville, to the ohio river. when chattanooga had been struggling with flooding problems -- and this is a town that had become the center of the national railroad network in the 1850's, a town that had become an important manufacturing city in the south, and in the nation, for that matter, in the late 19th century. but until this dam goes in in -- goes in, until this dam is shut up in 1940, the city experiences massive flooding. there is always the dramatic

stories of 1867 flood, when the military bridge the u.s. army had built during the civil war was washed away. floodwaters all the way back to where the national cemetery is today, which is about four and a half miles from the riverfront. with the dam these problems were finally taken care of. if you think of federal projects that have done good for people and done almost unmitigated good, this is probably the project he would hold up. if you think about the changes in people's lives, the transitions that happened in a very short period of time -- imagine being a farmer in the northern reaches of hamilton county, living in 19th-century style, chopping wood and drawing water out of the well. in the course of eight or 10 years, you have electric lights. you have electric pumps. it completely transforms the way

that people experienced everyday life in the valley. >> you have seen the dams. but they are only part of the plan. the rest of it is up to you. the tva was created for you. we want you to use it. >> the dams are certainly a major part of the project itself, but education programs before -- beyond the rural electrification programs, you see educators going up who were teaching people to use irrigation systems, teaching them how to use electricity to pump water into their fields, teaching them about fertilizer, manufacturing plants being built up and down the river, taking that modernizing agricultural practices. in some ways, that may be the bigger transition that happens. certainly the dams themselves create some stability and regularity in the lives of the people who are living along these rivers that flooded over and over again, but when you get

that experience regularized, then you begin to think about how to farm in a scientific basis and use fertilizer and use electricity to irrigate the fields themselves, it is a really important impact the tva had. you know, tva was putting up, in all the towns up and down the river, they were putting together demonstration kitchens for people to learn how to use electric appliances. you know, they seem like little things, but this is a big jump. this was a huge, huge acceleration in the way education went hand-in-hand with infrastructure that was being built, i think is as important as what was being dealt in the dam facility. >> the dam-builders, 200,000 of them in all, 4000 on this one project. ♪

>> when you listen to some of the old-timers talking about tva, not only do they talk about the opportunities that came through electricity, but also the opportunities that came through the jobs that came with the tva. as a federal agency, there were many opportunities open to african-americans through tva that would have not come to them otherwise. so you think about up of a very poor african-american community in this region, it is impossible -- it is a backwards, poor place without tva. what would have happened without tva? certainly, the flood problems continue on. certainly the everyday lives of the people affected by the introduction of inexpensive electricity don't change in those dramatic ways they did in the 1930's and 1940's. i think the areas remain stuck in a cycle of poverty that would have been very, very difficult to pull out of. i think the scientific know-how in terms of tva helps farmers

begin to think differently about how they are using their land, about fertilizers, and about irrigation. it remains stuck in 1872. >> shasta dam in northern california would transform farming in the state's central valleys, while parker dam in the south provided water to the los angeles metropolis. >> it is 602 feet tall, three -- it is two thirds of a mile from one end to the other. it is 883 feet thick, so actually thicker than it is tall. from here when we look up at the dam, we really get an idea just 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 in shasta dam, the second largest concrete dam in the entire united states.

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

water recedes, it tends to level out. therefore, you have this beautiful valley with wonderful soil. in california, we have a long growing year. the missing part was a reliable water source. that is where shasta dam came into play. we collect the water, we send it down, it goes in some of these canals, and we are supplemented by these smaller dams along the sierras, the western slope of the sierras, and on further down south along the rivers. that water has turned california into an agricultural megaplace, california is one of the largest agricultural producers in the world, but certainly within the united states. this is actually what comes from the general treasury, called appropriated funds. we are funded by the federal government. it is a federal facility. the way this works is, we produce power we sell water contracts to agriculture, so to water district and things like that -- we have obligations to them. we also have obligations for power that we try to meet as well.

as those things are sold, that money goes back to the treasury, then we as a specific entity go back to the treasury and say, we need this much money to operate shasta dam during the year. so we get some of that back. we generate more money than we actually need to actually operate shasta. in studying the topography of the area, what they're looking for is a big basin. something that would be able to hold a lot of water, so a natural valley is always important. they also want to look where the water is flowing. we are situated here where we get about 75% of the state's precipitation right to the north of us. so by building the dam here, they are also providing flood control to the city of redding, which was the largest city -- it still is -- in shasta county, down the river and all the way to the bay area. so you want to look for the area where the water is, you want to look for that natural basin? here at shasta they actually found three sites that would be potentially good sites for the

dam and this one was selected as the best because of the size of the basin and because of its proximity, north of redding. so it would provide control for redding as well. this room we call our lobby. this is the lobby to the power plant. back in the early days of construction when the dam was finished, this was open to the public. you would be able to drive down, come on in here and use this as a central place to visit shasta dam. after 9/11, it was closed down . we were not allowed to bring the public to this area. fortunately, back in 2008 we were able to get opened back up to the public for the full tour of shasta dam. when we redid this room, we maintained all of the vermont marble that was originally placed in here. the furniture you see is early 1950's lobby furniture. we kept it, just because it is kind of cool to see this stuff, and bring you back into the day when the dam was first operational to the public.

a kind of takes you back into that early 19 fifties place. another thing we like to do is talk a bit about the construction of shasta dam. shasta dam was built in 1938 to 1945. so it was a depression-era project. it was part of roosevelt's new deal. an opportunity to put people back to work at the end of the depression. as he brought them out here to start building the dam, there were going to be 4700 jobs to build this massive dam. a lot of folks coming here, just desperate, really needing a job, and came here in hopes of getting one of those 4700 jobs. halfway through construction, we got involved in what became world war ii and everything changed. we went from being a depression-era economy, to being a wartime economy. and everything kind of took a flip. it was all about building a water storage facility to prevent floods. during the war, it became about power. because a lot of shipyards and things like this improper top as a result of the war, they needed electricity to operate, or they were new -- they were no good.

anything that was going to produce a significant amount of power like the shasta powerplant was needed. so this was actually part of the war effort. it was given top priority, an a1 rating. that meant the guys that work here were deferred from the draft. they were not going overseas to fight, they would stay here and help their country by making -- by building this dam and making sure this powerplant got operational. when they came here to start building, one of the things they had to deal with was the railroad. the southern pacific railroad ran right along the western bank of the sacramento, right through 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 that both ends. -- ins and work -- at both ends and work their way toward the middle. remember back in 1939, there was no jps, things like that they could use. so you had two different elevations and they were building a tunnel like this. and they met in a spot about the size of a dinner plate. the photo we have has them

shaking hands from one end to another when they broke through. so the engineering was amazing. but more importantly, what that did was allow the train, instead of running through their jobsite, to be detoured around the jobsite. temporarily, because, of course, they recognized that all of this was going to become shasta lake at one time. they needed to temporarily detour the train while they started excavation work. as they started blasting, for the excavation, the train was running right through it. imagine being a passenger on that train. it would be driving through one of the biggest construction sites in the country at the time. right before they were ready to actually start building the dam, they had the 1940 flood. the flood of 1940 actually -- downtown redding was completely underwater. this photo was taken where a couple landmarks in redding stand today, but back then it

was a wild river that turned into a giant lake. you can imagine all that flooding did cause problems here at the jobsite, but amazingly enough, february of 1940 to july, five short months, they got that cleaned up and they were ready to start building the dam itself. the way the process worked is they brought gravel and sand from the redding on the 9.6-mile long conveyor belt. all that material was brought to the dam site, along with cement and water mixed together in a plant at the base of what would become the dam. that concrete was delivered in eight-yard buckets. you can see a man standing here, and a bucket. you kind of get an idea of the size. delivering concrete to a series of blocks at any given time. as the concrete was delivered, gentlemen like joe chestnut here would pick up a big compactor. his job was to pack the concrete down, make sure there were no

air bubbles. you can see it is a pretty stiff, dry mix. if you were to put a big air pocket, that will end up collapsing in on itself as you put more weight on it. so his job was important. imagine doing that all day long. they were paid big bucks, $.90 an hour. $7.20 a day to be able to do that in the summer sun, the rain, it didn't matter. it did not stop for 4.5 more years. 24/7. as it built up the sides of the dam, they were getting ready to start the spillway section. by this point, they had built a new permanent home for the train and they used that same tunnel that they had used for the train as a diversion tunnel to move the water through. so that they could dry out this area for the spillway. they did the spillway block on

top of block, on top of block. once they got to hear, those -- as they got here those valves that we saw earlier allowed the river to take back its natural course flowing through. you might think, why would they do that? what they wanted to do was to get the lake full. frank crowe, the superintendent in charge of construction, same guy who built hoover dam and many other dams across the country, felt the most prudent thing to do was to start filling the lake as they built it. he was a good engineer. he felt like the dam would well withstand the area. so as they were building the spillway, the water was chasing them, so kind of like this. as they did that, they were able to store enough water by 1944 to generate power for the first time, which is a year before the dam was actually completed. as this generator is spinning, it is producing 142 megawatts.

that one generator is capable of taking care of about 135,000 homes. they will run as needed to deliver the water, so as our water delivery allotment comes in and we are told we need to release this much water, they will average that out throughout the 24-hour period, deliver water in conjunction with when there is expected power demands. during a hot summer afternoon, for example. they will save it for the middle of the day when they know they are going to need electricity as well. power goes as a byproduct. but they do try to coordinate. over here we have a fully -functioning machine shop. this is all original, american-made 1940's equipment that is used to fix the pieces and parts of the generators that might need repair. you can think about it, you are not going to go to the local hardware store or home depot to pick up the pieces you might need of a generator needs to be replaced. they can actually manufacture or tool different pieces here or repair if they need to.

in front of us, this is a giant lathe, so they can actually tool a giant shaft if they need to. in the back we have presses that -- presses and drills and things they would use. as things need to be repaired, they can take care of most of that right here in the machine shop. when the dam was built, there was 9 million people living in california. today we are pushing 40 million. so a lot more people, same amount of water. you start adding global warming to that component of possibly heavier storms, flood control, we also have to deal with possibly less water in different places than we used to get more , now we are getting less, and we still have these people that need water to live. i think all of those eggs are going to make facilities like this more important. and how we manage them and how we manage the supply of water even more important.

>> the colorado river is essentially the only major river in this part of the world that will supply -- i mean, it supplies 40 million people total. it is a big deal. there would be major problems of -- problems if this river dried up. it is the economy and the lifeblood of this area of the world. the colorado river borders to -- two states, california and arizona. california and arizona have historically not gotten along too well with water, in particular from the colorado. in 1922, the colorado river compact was authorized by congress and it needed to be ratified by all the seven basin states within the watershed of the colorado river. all states except for arizona signed right away. arizona thought california was getting way too much water, so they refused to sign it. they continued to refuse to sign

it for years and decades afterward. parker dam was initially constructed in 1935 but completed in 1938. the primary reason for constructing the dam was for metropolitan water district of southern california to access colorado river water as part of their entitlement. -- entitlement on the river and to bring that to the l.a. river and down to san diego, as well. once construction commenced, the arizona governor, his name was benjamin moore -- it is not like the paint. he sent six militia out here from the arizona state infantry divisions that he wanted to find out what was going on. they sent them out here to inspect the progress. once they saw that california was actually starting to build on the arizona side, that

sounded alarms to the governor, and so he sent out 100 militia to say, you are not going to do this. that was rectified fairly quickly. this all happened in a span of about nine or 10 months in 1935. the result was, there was an act passed by congress called the rivers and harbors act that authorized construction of parker dam behind me here. so after that, everything was smooth and went according to plan. so, the first cement that got put into place was sometime in 1937. and in 1938 the last bucket of cement was put in and they completed it and started filling lake have a suit. so in fact, in light -- in 1938, this lake formed. the process was primarily for metropolitan water district of southern california.

but in 1968, another act by congress was passed called the colorado river project act, which authorized the construction of the central arizona project, another aqueduct that goes to phoenix and now to tucson and beyond. in essence, today, we have a million acre feet of water going to l.a., which if you do not know what an acre foot is, it is the thousand -- 3000 to 26,000 gallons, enough to feed two families of three or four for a year. in another half acre feet goes to phoenix and tucson. this river, just from those population centers in the service areas the water providers service, is about 20 million people. so it is a very significant population. the rest of the water goes through the dam, through hydroelectric generators. the capacity for power generation goes downriver and services large agricultural concerns down the river and as

far away as the imperial valley of southern california. so the yuma area gets all their water from this river, as well as other individuals or individual farms all the way down. so what services a lot here. the conflicts, we have been through those in mass amounts over the years. between all the states, really. but we also note we can't just tie things up in court forever, because nothing will get done. some of these cases taken to court have taken decades long, 20, 30 years. it has created careers for lawyers. so, instead of conflict, we have embraced since 2002 or 2003, to cooperate with each other. and we have done so up to this point, and will hopefully continue to do so into the future. so good cooperation between not just the big players, but all the entities that are dependent

on this river. for example, lake have assumed -- like -- lake havasu city, we are 100% dependent on the water. we do not have groundwater that will sustain the city if the river went away. the river creates the aquifer. we are 100% on that. we want to make sure that whatever the big picture is, the big players, we are little fish in all this, but we want to make sure we can sustain ourselves as well, and that is what we are trying to do. most visitors who come to visit our lake, which is really our economy for our city, they do not realize that the lake is here to serve 20 million people's water supply, or for agriculture, for all the crops that are grown. they look at it as a playground. it is a lake to go have fun in. and that is part of the deal. that is exactly it.

but i do not think they do. we try to educate as much as we can. in town, with water conservation, to tell them what is out here. >> right now, we will visit santa barbara, california, where the city's desalination plant helps with california is growing -- california's growing water shortage. quotes given the growing demand for water for environmental need, there is more of a demand to develop additional sources, and i think to continue to diversify. i think one of the city's hallmarks is diversification. because we know how vulnerable we are in an arid climate like this, where we could go multiple years without much rainfall. we are right on the beach here

in santa barbara. we are currently in a drought , ended officially started in 2011, although it takes to to -- two to three years to recognize you are in a drought, because we had dry spells. it has been the entire state. typically in the past it is usually in southern california or a drought in northern california, but do have the entire state in a drought has been really challenging. the state has come over the last 60 years, developed a network where we can move water from northern california to southern california. however, since there is no water in northern california, it has been difficult to meet everybody's needs right now. so, the last major drought in this area started in 1987 and ultimately ended in 1992 and it was pretty severe. not as severe as this one, but it was pretty drastic for the community. there was a lot of fear about running out of water. and if the voters approved

constructing a desalination facility along with also making the connections to the state water project so we could import water. so ultimately the desalination facility was completed in late 1991 and was only operated for a couple months and then put into a standby mode because we had received quite a bit of rainfall , and ultimately the community and decisions at that time were to keep it in standby mode, where it has been for roughly 20 years. we are taking a look at it, we are trying to reactivate it, and we are in the process of doing that. a lot of the technology has changed, so we are taking advantage in the changes in technology to do it a little different this time. ultimately, what we are doing is trying to separate out that salt molecule, which has a very strong bond with water, so it is taking upwards of about 700

psi to separate that molecule. and you are going through a very tight weave membrane that the molecule will not fit through. prior to that, it is a similar surface water treatment. similar to what most cities in the united states have. you are removing sediment and debris in the water so that all that is remaining is salty water. that is exactly what goes through these reverse osmosis membranes and leaves you with , actually a very pure water, almost a problematic water. it is so pure, so stripped of all its minerals, that we have to add minerals back to it so it is not corrosive to our pipes, because it will actually pull iron and materials out of the pipelines. it is an interesting problem, because we typically have very hard water here in santa barbara , so it seems odd to have add

two minerals back in. but the process is very powerful in removing everything from the water. this whole process starts a half-mile offshore. that is where our screen intake is. the pumps are located out there within the screens. the water is brought onshore, chemicals are added to start the coagulating, bringing particles together, attracting them so they can be filtered out. once they go into the facility, they go through a typical surface water treatment, where it goes through a media filter, which is like gravels and fans, which pulls out the particulates, and then all that is left is salty water, and that goes then into the ro membranes and the gallon of brine water is made. it is a 50/50 split. that water, we add minerals back

to it to harden it back up and hit it with a little chlorine before it is then pumped into our distribution system and sent off to the community. i think there is a lot of communities up and down california that will be looking at this. i do not see this is the end all solution to everything. but i do see it being -- playing a critical role in seeing basic health and safety needs and communities. i think you want to make sure you are balancing that with all of your other supplies. you know, desalinization has a great reliability factor to it, but then it carries a high unit cost. you balance that with your surface water supplies, which are typically a low unit cost, have a lot of variability and vulnerabilities with it. i think as a water supply

manager i am looking to manage all of those different -- i relate it to stock portfolios. it is investing in all these different stocks. these would be bonds. desalinization would be bonds. it is this very safe place to put your money, but it will not grow, it is not going to be the big moneymaker for you, necessarily. but it is an important part of anybody's portfolio to balance your water supply. >> not all projects are successful. in tacoma, washington, we will hear about a failed bridge project that today serves as an example to engineers. >> the area we are standing in right now is in the southern section of puget sound, which is the sort of washington state in the pacific northwest's great inland water. when the transcontinental

railroad came, there was talk about one day being able to span puget sound. but it really wasn't an undertaking anybody was prepared to do during the depression. federal programs like the building of the grand coulee dam and stuff, there were big public works projects happening in the pacific northwest. in the mid-1930's there began to be talk about creating a bridge over puget sound to reach from tacoma to the peninsula. the tacoma narrows bridge was opened on the first of july in 1940. after two years of construction. the tacoma narrows is also a bit of a wind tunnel, and people working on the deck began to notice movement, and almost --

an almost airplane-like lift in the bridge. unlike horizontal movement, they began to feel a vertical lift in the bridge, especially in the center span. you know, there was no suspension bridge anything like this in our part of the world, anywhere in the pacific northwest. so there was an unfamiliarity with how a big thing like this was supposed to behave. so people excited about it, there is a certain musical kind of gracefulness about a bridge like this. so people, i guess, just wanted to think it was not anything wrong. that it was normal. and once they get all the concrete down on the deck and everything, that would just all go away. then as we went out of summer and began to get into fall and the winds picked up a little bit, our prevailing wind out of the southwest, which blows almost directly across the bridge deck, they began to

notice that there was an undulation in the deck. and by fall soldiers were coming out from the military base for the novelty of riding the bridge. they will go out and kick their feet over the railing and stand on the outside of the bridge and lean out as far as they could and the center deck of the bridge would be rising -- not just inches, but feet, to the point where the undulation was so severe that two automobiles, or a truck and an automobile coming in opposite directions, the headlights of the vehicle coming at you would disappear under the rolling hill of the deck. so, for conservative people, something was horribly wrong from the very beginning. for a community that was proud of their new bridge, for the many people that participated in building the bridge, it was

unthinkable that this was wrong. but the engineers began to work on the idea of some stiffening of the bridge. they thought that the railings on the side could be converted into deep i-beams and that would add some rigidity to the bridge. and so some of those minor structural additions, modifications, were implemented or were about to be implemented as we got through october of 1940. and by early november of 1940, really only four months, four and a half months after the bridge had been completed, the weather began to shift into its winter patterns. and that really was the bellwether of what was about to happen. on the morning of november 7, the winds kicked up to 40 miles an hour and they were fiercely directed right at the side of the bridge.

as if the wind comes over the wing on an airplane, and instead of the normal undulation of the bridge, the deck began to twist, began to turn, and everybody noticed immediately that had been watching the bridge that that was a behavior people had not noticed before. so, early in the morning of the seventh there were hundreds, if not thousands of people on both sides of the bridge to start to watch what was happening, to start to watch this behavior. the bridge keepers, it was a toll bridge, so the bridge keepers had decided they would close the bridge. this just was wrong, it was not safe anymore. and indeed, it was just not a -- not an action that should happen with an inanimate object of this size.

one last car was coming across the bridge even though the access to the bridge had been shut off. there was one last car coming across the bridge. a man coming from his summer home over on goetz at peninsula -- kitsap peninsula, headed towards tacoma. he had a cocker spaniel with him in the car and by the time he got to the most severely moving part of the bridge deck, he could not control the automobile and the car swung, screeched around and ended up diagonally across both lanes on the bridge and jumped out and ran and got off the bridge. then for the next 30 or 40 minutes, the bridge went into just a violent movement that no one had seen before. and all of the crowds on both sides closed in to just watch,

so there was, i think, everyone started to suspect that the impossible was about to happen, the bridge was going to give it up, was going to fail. with no one on the bridge, strangely enough, a university professor who had worked on trying to solve the puzzle -- there was enough time for people to be able to get out there, and is a professor, actually ran out onto the bridge trying to get the dog out of the car. it great footage of him. it looks like a steven spielberg movie. today you watch that footage and you cannot even imagine that somebody would run out onto a bridge with this tearing deck. he get out there, the dog was too terrified to get out of the car, so he gave up, and strolled back. he was knocked down a couple of times.

finally he got off the bridge and in a few moments that followed, the deck tore away from the hangers and the witnesses talk about it being like listing to gunshots because the jewels, they are called, these big bolts that are -- the cable goes through the deck and then there is the big bolt on the bottom to keep it from pulling out, those jewels begin to pop and the cables began to snap under the force. the weight standards on the bridge are cutting, swirling rapidly, catching on the cables and in just a moment the connection between two sections of the bridge deck fail and there is a violent twist and tear of the deck and in the moments that followed that, huge sections all begin to fail.

in most of the center span of the bridge underneath the big suspension cables falls away, drops away from the bridge, and then plunges into puget sound. no one is killed in the incident. no one is even hurt. so, they demolish as much as they can. this is november of 1940. as they begin to think about having to reengineer the whole thing, the clouds of war close in, the second world war, and by that time they realized there was no way during the war effort they are going to be able to get the bridge rebuilt, and then pearl harbor happens. the shipyards become a critical strategic thing and the focus shifts away from public works projects, and in fact, the towers and steel on the bridge is actually removed and brought

into the war effort, recycled and turned into bullets and tanks and whatever. actually, sections of the bridge, of the steel, are used on the alaska highway to build a highway up to alaska during the second world war, because of the land lease program and ties with alaska. the remnants of the galloping gertie's sit in the channel through the war, and then it is only after the war that they begin to reconstruct another suspension bridge, and then in 1950 the tacoma narrows bridge second is complete. and that is the bridge we see in the distance here. the steel bridge that is standing, the steel towers in the distance. i doubt that there is a textbook or a reference book written

about bridge engineering that does not include tacoma in the index, because of the tacoma narrows bridge. it is impossible for me to imagine that engineering students all over the world have seen the film. -- the film of galloping gertie 's collapse. it is one of those absolutely spellbinding moments in engineering history, one of those disasters of utter failures of design that is completely captured on film. and it is amazing. it still is jaw-dropping to see a huge endeavor like this, a physical object, move with this much, just dance almost, with this much movement. -- movement that are out of the parameters of the original design. >> you can watch more content

like this on our website. visit c-span.org/citiesto her. -- c-span.org/citiestour. >> with testimony from former energy secretary under president obama. watch at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, online, or listen with the c-span radio app. >> today on the communicators, california democratic congressman jerry mcinerney talks about legislation on data privacy and social idea legislation -- social media. >> people feel like their privacy has been invaded and they are not wrong. it is not just the big tech companies, but a lot of people have access to your data. that means they know what sort of activities you do when you're not working, or you might frequent, what sort of things you buy in stores.

this is a lot of very private information that should not be in the hands of whoever wants to buy it. i think that is the reason we need to look at privacy. >> watch "the communicators" today on c-span. ♪ >> american history tv on c-span3. exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend. coming up, today at 6:00 p.m. eastern on the civil war, a discussion on sheridan's ride, the right of john philip sheridan and ending the confederacy resistance in the shenandoah valley. sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern on real america, four films marking him -- marking women's history month. at 6:00 p.m. eastern on american artifacts, recreation of a fence

on president ronald reagan by john hinckley junior. and 8:00 p.m. eastern, talks about how popular culture influences presidents. exploring the american story. watch american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >> pulse have opened up in the two louisiana districts for special elections to the u.s. house of representatives. in the second district, 15 candidates are running for cedric richmond's seat. richmond designed to be a special advisor at the white house and head of president biden's office of public engagement. in the louisiana fifth district, julia letlow leads nearly a dozen candidates running for her husband's seat. republican luke letlow died of covid-19 complications for he

was sworn into congress. if elected, miss letlow be the first woman ever elected to represent that district. polls in both districts close at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. >> now to a discussion from the bipartisan policy center about infrastructure. we will hear about the likelihood for bipartisan cooperation on a potential transportation and high-speed funding package -- high-speed internet funding package in congress. >> hello, and thank you for joining the bipartisan policy center for our webcast on paying for america's infrastructure needs. i am andy winkler associate , director of our infrastructure project. the bipartisan policy center, through initiatives, through partnerships with organizations like the u.s. chamber of commerce, is committed to moving a bipartisan infrastructure package forward. there arsi