Six Companies, Inc. was a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

of construction companies that was formed to build the

Hoover Dam Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on S ...

on the

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

and

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

. They later built

Parker Dam Parker Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam that crosses the Colorado River downstream of Hoover Dam. Built between 1934 and 1938 by the Bureau of Reclamation, it is high, of which are below the riverbed (the deep excavation was necessary in ...

, a portion of the

Grand Coulee Dam Grand Coulee Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington, built to produce hydroelectric power and provide irrigation water. Constructed between 1933 and 1942, Grand Coulee originally had two powerho ...

, the

Colorado River Aqueduct The Colorado River Aqueduct, or CRA, is a water conveyance in Southern California in the United States, operated by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD). The aqueduct impounds water from the Colorado River at Lake Hav ...

across the Mojave and

Colorado Desert California's Colorado Desert is a part of the larger Sonoran Desert. It encompasses approximately , including the heavily irrigated Coachella and Imperial valleys. It is home to many unique flora and fauna. Geography and geology The Colorado D ...

s to urban

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...

, and many other large projects.

Hoover Dam

On January 10, 1932, the

Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

made bid documents for the

construction project available to interested parties at $5 a copy (equivalent to $ in ). The government would provide the materials, and the contractor was to prepare the site and build the dam. The dam was described in minute detail, covering 100 pages of text and 76 drawings. A $2 million (equivalent to $ in ) bid bond was to accompany each bid. The winner would have to post a $5 million (equivalent to $ in ) performance bond. The contractor would have seven years to build the dam, or penalties would ensue. Because of the project's immense size and the fact that it was the first dam on the

, no single contractor had the resources to make a qualified bid alone. So,

general contractor A general contractor, main contractor or prime contractor is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and the communication of information to all involved parties throughout the course of ...

Utah Construction Company The Utah Construction Company was a construction company founded by Edmund Orson Wattis Jr., Warren L. Wattis and William. H. Wattis in 1900. History A short four years after its founding, the company was awarded the contract to build the Fea ...

Ogden, Utah Ogden is a city in and the county seat of Weber County, Utah, United States, approximately east of the Great Salt Lake and north of Salt Lake City. The population was 87,321 in 2020, according to the US Census Bureau, making it Utah's eighth ...

decided to form a

consortium A consortium (plural: consortia) is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources ...

in order to submit a joint bid for the contract. Initially, Utah Construction Company's owners, brothers E.O. and W.H. Wattis, along with the company's vice president, Andrew H. Christensen, asked Harry W. Morrison of Morrison-Knudsen to join them. After they realized the bid would be much higher than expected, the Wattis Brothers and Morrison-Knudsen convinced four additional companies to join. In February 1930 The Six Companies, Inc. was incorporated as a joint venture and they began working out a bid enlisting the help of Morrison-Knudsen employee Frank T. Crowe to do so. The project was so complex and large that only three bids were received and, on March 4, 1931, the

US Secretary of the Interior The United States secretary of the interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior. The secretary and the Department of the Interior are responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land along with natural ...

accepted the Six Companies' bid of US$48,890,955 (equivalent to $ in ). This was $5,000,000 lower than the next bidder, meaning a bid-spread of almost 10%. The Six Companies board selected Crowe, who had helped draft the bid, as the General Construction Superintendent of the Boulder Dam construction. He was heavily involved and hired each of the men who were employed during the course of the project, lived in Boulder City with his wife and two daughters, and was on the dam site every day of the week until the project was completed. Work began around June 1931 and The Six Companies completed the dam's construction two years ahead of schedule in 1935. Crowe was awarded a bonus percentage of the profit for completing virtually every portion of the job well ahead of schedule. The dam was dedicated in September 1935 but it took an additional nine years (1938–1947) under relative secrecy, to fix serious leaks with a supplemental grout curtain.

Six Companies Railroad

The Six Companies also built the Six Companies Railroad. It ran along the Hemenway Wash, present day

Las Vegas Bay Las Vegas Bay is a bay at the western edge of Lake Mead in the U.S. state of Nevada. The bay is located within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area to the northeast of the city of Henderson, Nevada, near the junction of Lake Mead Drive and Lake ...

, and connected to the US Government Hoover Dam Railroad at Lawler, Nevada, a location also known as "US Government Junction". From Lawler the railroad went north for to Saddle Island and then east to the Three-Way Junction gravel plant, now submerged under

Lake Mead Lake Mead is a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States. It is located in the states of Nevada and Arizona, east of Las Vegas. It is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of water capacity. L ...

. From the gravel plant the line split into two branches. One branch ran south for to the dam via Cape Horn, Lomix (the Low Level Concrete Mixing Plant) and Himix (the High Level Concrete Mixing Plant) and the dam face. The other branch, now also submerged under Lake Mead, ran north for across the Las Vegas Wash, crossed the Colorado River on a bridge into Arizona and the Arizona gravel pit (Arizona Gravel Deposits) at a location from Callville. The line was constructed by railroad contractor John Phillips of

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. Since the completion of the dam and filling of Lake Mead, Six Companies, Inc. railroad line is now submerged. The

Western Pacific Railroad The Western Pacific Railroad was a Class I railroad in the United States. It was formed in 1903 as an attempt to break the near-monopoly the Southern Pacific Railroad had on rail service into northern California. WP's Feather River Route dire ...

purchased several of the Six Companies dump cars for company service after the dam was completed and the equipment declared surplus. One of these cars is now preserved at the

Western Pacific Railroad Museum The Western Pacific Railroad Museum (WPRM) in Portola, California, known as the Portola Railroad Museum until January 1, 2006, is a heritage railroad and archives that preserves and operates historic American railroad equipment and preserves docu ...

Portola, California Portola ( ) is the only incorporated city in Plumas County, California, United States. The population was 2,104 at the 2010 census, down from 2,227 at the 2000 census. Portola is located on the Middle Fork of the Feather River and was named afte ...

. The US Government Railroad had a branch that brought supplies by rail from a connection with the Boulder City Branch of the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

Boulder City, Nevada Boulder City is a city in Clark County, Nevada, United States. It is approximately southeast of Las Vegas. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population of Boulder City was 14,885. The city took its name from Boulder Canyon ( ...

WWII

During World War II, the Six Companies built airstrips and related facilities on Pacific islands. The venture also held a majority ownership interest in

Joshua Hendy Iron Works The Joshua Hendy Iron Works was an American engineering company that existed from the 1850s to the late 1940s. It was at one time a world leader in mining technology and its equipment was used in the construction of the Panama Canal, amongst oth ...

Sunnyvale, California Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwest Santa Clara County in the U.S. state of California. Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real and Highway 101 and is bordered by portions of San Jose to the nort ...

. Hendy was most known for its record-breaking assembly line production of 754

Liberty Ship Liberty ships were a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Though British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Mass ...

EC-2 Reciprocating Steam Engines, producing one engine every 40.8 hours. They were used at the

Richmond Shipyards The four Richmond Shipyards, in the city of Richmond, California, United States, were run by Permanente Metals and part of the Kaiser Shipyards. In World War II, Richmond built more ships than any other shipyard, turning out as many as three ships ...

Company structure

Six Companies Inc. was composed of: #

Henry J. Kaiser Henry John Kaiser (May 9, 1882 – August 24, 1967) was an American industrialist who became known as the father of modern American shipbuilding. Prior to World War II, Kaiser was involved in the construction industry; his company was one of ...

Co. of

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

and

Bechtel Corporation Bechtel Corporation () is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company founded in San Francisco, California, and headquartered in Reston, Virginia. , the '' Engineering News-Record'' ranked Bechtel as ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

(as Bechtel-Kaiser): 30% #MacDonald and Kahn of

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

: 20% #

: 20% # Morrison-Knudsen of

Boise, Idaho Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown are ...

: 10%, #Pacific Bridge Company of

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

: 10% #

J.F. Shea Co The J.F. Shea Co., Inc. is one of the largest privately held construction and real estate companies in the United States. J.F. Shea comprises a collection of companies including Shea Properties, Shea Homes, Shea Ventures, (Venture Capital), J.F. ...

of Portland, Oregon: 10% Leadership was split between the companies with officers: * W.H. Wattis of Utah Construction Company (President) * W.A. Bechtel of Bechtel-Kaiser (First Vice President) * E.O. Wattis of Utah Construction Company (2nd Vice President) * Charles A Shea of J.F. Shea Co (Secretary) * Felix Kahn of MacDonald and Kahn (Treasurer) * K.K. Bechtel of Bechtel-Kaiser (Assistant Secretary-Treasurer) Board members included: * W.H. Wattis * E.O. Wattis * Charles A. Shea * Felix Kahn * Stephen D. Bechtel * Henry J. Kaiser * Alan MacDonald * Philip Hart

Hoover Dam

Six Companies Railroad

WWII

Company structure

See also

References

Further reading