Big dams and other dreams

by Donald E. Wolf

In this freewheeling saga of American industrial might, civil engineer Donald E. Wolf tells how a giant combine of firms, Six Companies, built the great Hoover, Bonneville, and Grand Coulee Dams and laid the foundations for the Golden Gate and San Francisco Bay Bridges. Then, as the Second World War threatened, the Six Companies executives - in new, ever-changing combinations - undertook ever more spectacular projects. Together they were to play a major role in developing the modern American West, through the wide variety of their enterprises at home and overseas. Who were the men of Six Companies? The Bechtels designed and built much of the postwar infrastructure on a half-dozen continents, while constructing the world's largest engineering firm. Henry J. Kaiser created an industrial empire of steel, aluminum, chemicals, cement, automobiles, and health care. Marriner Eccles, who succeeded the Wattis bothers as the head of Utah Construction Company, also served as Franklin Roosevelt's