Page, Arizona
High-resolution
image (260 Kb)
This isolated
community near the northern Arizona border is of special interest
because of its origin and location. Unlike other towns in the area,
Page was created in 1957 to house workers and their families during
the construction of nearby Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River.
Its 44-square-kilometer (17-square-mile) site was obtained in a
land exchange with the Navajo Indian tribe. The town is perched
atop Manson Mesa at an elevation of 1,311 meters (4,300 feet) above
sea level and 183 meters (600 feet) above Lake Powell.
After the dam
was completed in the 1960s, the town grew steadily to today's population
of 6,200. Because of the new bridge and roads built for use during
construction, it has become the gateway to the Glen Canyon National
Recreation Area and Lake Powell, attracting more than 3 million
visitors per year. Page is also the home of two of the largest electrical
generation units in the West. Glen Canyon Dam has a 1,288,000-kilowatt
capacity when fully online. The other power plant to the southeast
is the Navajo Generating Station, a coal-fired steam plant with
an output capability of 2,250,000 kilowatts.
Astronaut photograph
ISS006-E-28359
was provided by the Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Laboratory
at Johnson Space Center. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA-JSC Gateway
to Astronaut Photography of Earth.
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