The first real test Crowe faced on the dam project was the labor strike. A large variety of people was not impressed with the workforce. Labor force’s decided to strike in 1931 because of the risks of the construction site and poor conditions in Ragtown. The project’s chief engineer and superintendent, Francis Trenholm Crowe, was defiantly insensitive when a committee formed to express the workers’ demands. In fact, Crowe contested each of the team’s qualms with the idea of eagerness to have the workforce replaced. Print interviews in local news publications quoted Crowe saying, “he would be glad to get rid of his workers” and calling his men “malcontents”. Eventually the laborers returned to work after the hard-line gambit functioned
