Building America - Grand Coulee Dam

Hailed as one of the seven modern engineering wonders of the United States and the "eighth wonder of the world," Grand Coulee Dam was the largest dam ever built when it was completed in 1941. It stands 550 feet high -- as tall as a 55-story building. It contains almost 12 million cubic feet of concrete -- enough concrete to build a 6-foot-wide sidewalk around the world at the equator! More than 12,000 people worked to build the Grand Coulee Dam, and at least 72 men died doing it. Estimates report than 150 million hours of human labor went into the dam's construction.