Upon its dedication in 1885, the Washington Monument was the tallest structure in the world. Begun in 1848 to honor George Washington, the structure wasn't completed for over 36 years. Construction and financing problems slowed progress and the Civil War halted it completely.
ASCE
WashingtonState: DCCountry: USAWebsite: http://www.asce.org/Project/Washington-Monument/Creator: Casey, Thomas Lincoln
BrookRyeState: NYCountry: USAWebsite: http://www.asce.org/Project/Ward-House/Creator: Ward, William , Mook, Robert
It is a large, imposing structure (over a dozen rooms and spacious halls) dominated by a four-story octagonal tower at one corner and a second shorter square tower at another corner containing tanks for potable and fire-fighting water supply.
The structure has two segments: an East Channel bridge consisting of four 175-foot spans and three 240-foot spans crossing from Harrisburg to City Island; and a West Channel bridge, consisting of seven 175-foot spans crossing from City Island to Wormleysburg.
With 15 truss spans totaling 2,820 feet, the Walnut Street Bridge is the finest and largest surviving example of the standardized Phoenix wrought-iron truss bridges produced from 1884 to 1923.
Designed by David B. Steinman, of Robinson & Steinman, New York City, the Waldo-Hancock suspension Bridge is a significant example of Steinman's work. David Steinman is considered among the most important suspension bridge designers of the 20th century. He earned an engineering degree from Columbia University in 1909 and went on to apprentice with Gustav Lindenthal, then at work on New York's Hell Gate Bridge. In the 1920's, Steinman emerged as an outstanding and innovative suspension bridge designer.
The plant began operation only twenty-six days after Thomas Edison's first steam plant began operating on Pearl Street in New York (NL 46). On September 30, 1882, an Edison "K" type dynamo produced electricity from a water-powered turbine to light three buildings (two paper mills and the H.J. Rogers home), at rate of about 12 1/2 kilowatts. It is the first Edison hydroelectric central station to serve a system of private and commercial customers in North America. The story of its development provides keen insight into the nation's first experiences with the electric light.
The bridge is 408 meters long and weighed approximately 1,500 metric tons when built. Originally supported by four columns, two more were added in later years to support the weight of heavier rail cars.
In 1930, the U.S. Corps of Engineers was directed to complete an engineering survey of the Tennessee River to determine the feasibility of establishing complete river navigability. The resulting report recommended a series of nine main river dams and several tributary dams to allow for a minimum eight foot channel (standard for barge navigation) from Knoxville to Paducah.
The United States Capitol is among the most symbolically important and architecturally impressive buildings in the nation. Construction of the original Capitol began in 1793, but it has been through several additions and alterations. Over its lifetime, the Capitol building has been built, burnt, rebuilt, extended, and restored.
St. LouisState: MSCountry: USAWebsite: http://www.asce.org/Project/Union-Station/Creator: Link, Theodore , Pegram, George
In the early 1900s, Union Station was the hub of passenger railroad traffic in the central United States. It was one of the first stations to serve as a centralized terminal for multiple railroad lines. It originally served 22 rail lines; 13 from the east and nine from the west.
Innovations
Designed by Claude A. P. Turner, a pioneer of reinforced concrete construction, the Marshall Building was constructed originally in 1906 as a five-story building. In 1911 the sixth floor of the building was added as per Turner's original design. This building is the oldest extant example of…
Read MoreThe granite milestones marking the Mason-Dixon Line bear crests from the two parties involved in the land-grant dispute, the families of William Penn and Charles Calvert (also known as Lord Baltimore).
What is now generally referred to as the Mason-Dixon Line was established by the…
Read MoreThe Rogue River Bridge was the most advanced concrete bridge in America when it was built. Distinguished bridge engineer Conde McCullough employed the techniques of Frenchman Eugene Freyssinet to create thin, graceful concrete arches for this seven-span structure.
Pre-compression of the…
Read MoreThe city of Shreveport could not justify the cost of building a water distribution system solely for the purpose of supplying potable water. It was a series of disastrous fires in the 1880s that galvanized support for a pumping facility that would provide ample water for firefighting.
…
Read MoreWhile the Erie Canal has become well-known in the annals of American history, the Middlesex Canal, built two decades earlier and a model for canal engineers throughout young America, has only recently become recognized for its important achievements. Extending 27 miles northeast from Boston…
Read MoreIn 1794, Congress authorized and President Thomas Jefferson signed into law the raising of a Corps of Artillerists and Engineers (now the United States Army Corps of Engineers) to be educated and stationed at the newly created United States Military Academy. The U.S. Military Academy was the…
Read MoreThis was America's first large-scale activated sludge plant. The successful operation of Milwaukee's sewage treatment plant led the way for many other American municipalities to adopt its methods of efficient environmental recycling.
Prior to 1925, sewage and industrial waste from the…
Read MoreMinot's Ledge is a wave-swept rock formation in a rocky area of ocean about a mile off the Cohasset shore near Boston. Numerous serious shipwrecks prompted the government to erect a beacon there, and construction began in the summer of 1847.
The light, constructed on tall iron legs…
Known as "the highest and lowest holing in history," the tunnel bored through the Rockies at an elevation of 9,200 feet, 2,800 feet below the surface. Eight hundred men worked around the clock for 3 1/2 years, moving 3 billion pounds of rock.
Three thousand feet under the Continental…
Read MoreThe Memphis Bridge (now called the Frisco Bridge) comprises three spans across the Mississippi River. With a main span measuring over 790 feet, it was one of the longest railroad bridges in the world upon completion. The renowned George Morison, after whom the bridge is unofficially named,…
Read MoreJust 20 years after settling the uninhabited Salt Lake valley, Brigham Young and his Mormon followers completed one of the nation's most impressive public structures. The 9,000-seat Mormon Tabernacle boasts a clear span roof measuring 150 feet by 250 feet, its timber trusses joined with wooden…
Read MoreDesigned, patented, and built by Thomas W.H. Moseley, this arched 96-foot span bridge preceded by years the standard use of wrought iron for bridges. For the first time in the United States, Moseley incorporated the use of riveted wrought-iron plates for the triangular-shaped top chord.
…
Read MoreThe Mullan Road was designed to facilitate the movement of troops and supplies across the Rocky Mountains between the Missouri River basin in the Great Plains and the Columbia River Basin at the Columbia Plateau during times of Indian hostilities. But because peace was reached with the Northwest…
Read MoreThe National Road was the first interstate highway in the United States, and the first roadway to be financed with federal money. Authorized by Congress during the administration of Thomas Jefferson in 1806, the road was built over time and in sections from Cumberland, Maryland, westward through…
Read MoreNavajo Bridge spans Marble Canyon, 470 feet above the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park. It was considered the highest steel arch bridge in America when completed.
The Navajo Bridge (also known as the Grand Canyon Bridge) was built in 1929 by the Arizona Highway Department and…
Read MoreIn 1794, the Delaware legislature authorized a lottery to fund the erection of ice piers in the harbor at New Castle. The ice harbor was designed to protect anchored ships from storms and ice. At the time, New Castle served as the principal winter port for ships from the Port of Philadelphia…
Read MoreIn May 1927, the same month of Charles A. Lindbergh's famous transatlantic flight from New York to Paris, a fact-finding commission appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce concluded that Newark would be the ideal location for an airfield to serve the greater New York/New Jersey metropolitan…
Read MoreNorris Dam impounds the Clinch River, a mountain tributary of the Tennessee River. The facility stands as a tribute and symbol of the birth of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Given broad jurisdiction over resource development in the watershed (a 40,000-square-mile basin comprising parts of…
Read MoreThe Northern Pacific High Line Bridge No. 64, built between 1907 and 1908, has continued to perform yeoman service in the uninterrupted flow of the Nation's commerce. Nearly, 100 years after this bridge officially opened, it still carries 125-ton car unit coal trains, double stack container…
Read MoreThe crossing of the Delaware River at Easton, Pennsylvania, provided a central link in travel from the northeastern seaboard to America's inland territories throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries. From 1806 to the mid-1890s, travelers used a landmark wooden structure built by noted bridge-…
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