When completed in 1936, Boulder Dam was the largest concrete structure ever built. This generated feelings of national pride and the Union Pacific happily took advantage of this by encouraging people to stopover in Las Vegas so they could tour the dam. Of course, people going to or from California who wanted to tour the dam had to take a Union Pacific train rather than, say, the Chief or Golden State Limited.

Click image to download a 4.4-MB PDF of this brochure.

As noted in yesterday’s 1935 Challenger brochure, eastbound passengers could step off the Los Angeles Limited in Las Vegas at 5:45 am, take a bus tour to the dam, and then continue their journey on the Pacific Limited at 5:45 pm, adding just $1.75 (for the bus tour) to the cost of their trip. Westbound, the Pacific Limited arrived at 12:05 pm and the Los Angeles Limited departed at 9:30 pm, allowing plenty of time for a dam tour. By 1940, when today’s brochure was issued, slight changes in schedules allowed westbound passengers even more time for the tour.

Union Pacific distributed a lot of these 8-1/2″x11″ brochures to travel agents. The ones I have range from 1929 to 1959, and there are probably some from earlier and later. Most of them unfold to 17″x11″, but this one unfolds twice to 25-1/2″x11″. This allowed room for three pages of crisp black-and-white photos of the dam and its surroundings.