Boulder City

History

The land upon which Boulder City was founded was a harsh, desert environment. Its sole reason for existence was the need to house workers contracted to build the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River (known commonly as Boulder Dam from 1933 to 1947, when it was officially renamed Hoover Dam by a joint resolution of Congress). Men hoping for work on the dam project had begun settling along the river in tents soon after the precise site for the dam had been chosen by the Bureau of Reclamation in 1930. Their ramshackle edifices were collectively known as "Ragtown". Boulder City was originally built in 1931 by the Bureau of Reclamation and Six Companies, Inc. as housing for workers who were building the Hoover Dam. The sheer scale of the dam and duration of the project required the Bureau of Reclamation to consider the construction of a semi-permanent town rather than a temporary arrangement. Boulder City was exceptionally rare as an example of a town fully planned under government supervision. This is unlike 19th-century privately funded company town examples found in the United Kingdom, such as Port Sunlight, or in the United States, such as Pullman, Chicago. Boulder City was carefully planned through federal supervision as a model community, with Dutch-born urban architect Saco Rienk de Boer contracted to plan it. DeBoer had been a planner for Denver, Colorado, and was to design many towns and suburbs around the Rocky Mountain region. Because the Hoover Dam project itself represented a focus for optimism for a country suffering from the effects of the Great Depression, the town itself was to be an additional manifestation of this optimism. There was to be an emphasis on a clean-living environment for dam workers. The plan submitted by DeBoer in 1930 was formal and…

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which , or 0.02%, is water. This ranks Boulder City as the largest city in Nevada by land area and 35th in the country, but gives it a low density rate of only about 72 people per square mile. Boulder City maintains strict controls on growth, limited to 120 single- or multi-family residential building permits for new construction per year. Hotels are also restricted to no more than 35 rooms. These restrictions are defined in the city code of Boulder City. According to the Köppen climate classification system, Boulder City has a hot desert climate (Köppen type BWh)

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• House Finch

  Haemorhous mexicanus (P.L.Statius Müller, 1776) · Aves
  1,753
• Larrea tridentata (DC.) Coult.

  Larrea tridentata (DC.) Coult. · Magnoliopsida
  1,706
• Northern Mockingbird

  Mimus polyglottos (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,529
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,423
• Verdin

  Auriparus flaviceps (Sundevall, 1850) · Aves
  1,296
• Costa's Hummingbird

  Calypte costae (Bourcier, 1839) · Aves
  1,231
• Great-tailed Grackle

  Quiscalus mexicanus (Gmelin, 1788) · Aves
  1,165
• Common Raven

  Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,076

Largest nearby schools

• Boulder City HS
  High · Boulder City · 665 students · 22.2:1 ratio
• Mitchell Andrew ES
  Elementary · Boulder City · 386 students · 14.3:1 ratio
• Garrett Elton M JHS
  Middle · Boulder City · 380 students · 18.1:1 ratio
• King Martha P ES
  Elementary · Boulder City · 354 students · 16.1:1 ratio

Most recent

• M 3.75 — 2026-06-04
  11 km NW of Summerlin South, Nevada
• M 2.64 — 2025-10-07
  20 km SW of Primm, NV
• M 3.3 — 2025-06-05
  24 km ENE of Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada
• M 2.6 — 2024-03-07
  14 km ENE of Boulder City, Nevada
• M 2.6 — 2023-07-26
  32 km SSE of Moapa Valley, Nevada
• M 2.5 — 2022-09-30
  Nevada