Boulder City
In the fall of 1931, a housing camp was built for the workers involved in the construction of the new dam on the Colorado River on the Nevada/Arizona border. As workers streamed into Southern Nevada to secure jobs on the new project, the company contracted to build the dam, Six Companies, established Boulder City. No plans were made for a school, however.
The federal government denied Clark County and the State of Nevada the ability to tax workers and businesses located within the federal reservation. This restriction meant that the county was unable to educate the children of the Boulder Dam workers. With no schools nearby, parents banded together to create a private school program with classes held in different homes and temporary buildings.
In 1932, the federal government provided a sixteen-room school in Boulder City. The city manager, an employee of the Bureau of Reclamation, acted as the school board for the new school. The elementary district was established in 1933 when the courts finally granted the State of Nevada and Clark county the authority to tax personal property in Boulder City, and the federal government leased the building to the district, thus allowing elementary students the opportunity to attend public school for the first time in Boulder City. Sixteen teachers arrived for work the first day of classes, and their classrooms were filled with 627 elementary school students. Boulder City high school students attended classes at Las Vegas High School until 1941. Following World War II, the federal government began construction of a permanent junior-senior high school in Boulder City. The building was completed in 1950.
While Education in the Neon Shadow features a section on Blue Diamond, not all of the Archive Committee's collection fit into the publication. To view additional artifacts on this community, take the Blue Diamond tour. Begin by clicking the below START button or click on thumbnails to jump to an individual page.
Boulder City Tour
