Examining America’s Foundation

The next time you flush the toilet, flip a light switch or take a spin in your SUV, you might just give a silent note of thanks to the beautiful minds and iron-clad resolve of the people responsible for making it all possible across this great land of ours.

OK, now back to reality. We’ve been taking the modern miracles of infrastructure for granted for far too long to expect anyone to give it much thought now, but PBS’ four-part series, “Great Projects: The Building of America,” aims to rectify that. And the good news is that the back stories of the taming of wild rivers, the hot-wiring of sprawling cities and the complexities of bridge and road challenges turn out to be a painless and frequently fascinating series of history lessons.

The first of the hourlong specials, “A Tale of Two Rivers” (at 10 tonight on KCET, KVCR), dishes some dirt along with the details of how engineers struggled to harness the Colorado (for water and power) and the Mississippi (for flood control). The Colorado’s solution, the building of Hoover Dam, is a neater package for TV purposes, and the head-butting between President Herbert Hoover and his successor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, provides some juicy tidbits. Did you know that the initials HD, for Hoover Dam, had to be blasted off the face of the structure after FDR took over in 1932? It was known as Boulder Dam until an act of Congress restored its original name 15 years later, which Hoover, who had campaigned under the slogan “The Great Engineer,” lived to see.

The project also provided thousands of desperately needed jobs for a country in the throes of the Great Depression. Recalls the widow of one of the workers: “Everybody that hadn’t committed suicide was trying to get a job.”

Next Wednesday, the U.S. gets plugged in on “Electric Nation.”