Every Las Vegas family should stand on top of Hoover Dam at least once: 726 feet of curved concrete holding back Lake Mead, with art deco eagles, terrazzo stars and tour elevators plunging into the power plant deep inside the canyon wall. The visitor center’s exhibits and model of the Colorado River basin make the engineering click for kids – this thing was built, by hand and courage, in the 1930s.
Pair the dam with the Lake Mead National Recreation Area next door: shoreline picnics, the family-friendly Railroad Trail through old construction tunnels to the dam itself, and junior ranger booklets at the visitor center. It’s a history lesson, a geology lesson and a ‘wow’ lesson, all before lunch.
