moment they ceremonially broke ground on the construction. this was 1957. this was a previous governor of california, goodwin knight. everybody called him goodie knight, as in good night. he's got a shovel full of dirt there. somebody at the ground breaking had the foresight to save that exact shovelful of dirt they dumped it into a bag, saved it for the day the dam would be complete and up and running. they could have saved a little of it but they saved a lot of it. they saved a giant amount of dirt from that shovelful and gave it to ronald reagan. they sent ronald reagan back to the governor's mansion that day with a giant jar of a previous governor's dirt.