Modern (18th-20th Century)

Throughout its history, Maine's rivers have presented both opportunities for economic gain as well as obstacles to communication and transportation. Among the nineteenth century mechanics and engineers who designed the facilities and structures used to exploit or overcome these waterways, few attained the level of achievement reached by Daniel Beedy. Working primarily in rural Franklin County as a millwright and engineer, Beedy's career illustrates the importance of this little documented group of builders.

In developing the STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING SLIDE LIBRARY as a comprehensive resource for teaching structural and architectural engineering at college and university level, I felt there was a need to devote a volume to the work of one structural design company. Leonhardt, Andrä and Partners of Stuttgart, Germany, was an ideal choice for this project. One of Europe’s leading structural design companies, its staff has been on the leading edge of many developments in engineering over the past 40 years. Their name has been particularly associated with the development of incrementally launched bridges, cable-stayed bridges, cable-net structures, and prestressed concrete television towers.

The construction of durable Iron Highway Bridges instead of perishable wooden structures – securing, as it does an ornamental and permanent improvement to the public highways, and avoiding their frequent obstruction for the repair or rebuilding of wooden bridges failing from decay, storm or fire – has become an imperative public want, wherever trial has been made of properly designed and constructed work.

From southeast to northwest, Cleveland is traversed by the winding Cuyahoga river valley, which, while it provides the railroads with an effective entrance to the city, cuts it into two distinct districts as far as vehicular traffic is concerned. To provide crossings over the river and its wide valley, several bridges have been builds, notably the Detroit-superior Bridge near the lakefront and the central viaduct to the south. After 25 years of study on viaduct to connect Lorain avenue on the west of the river with the district to the east, in The Course of which time the project was once abounded after bonds had actually been voted for construction, the citizens of Cleveland are opening, the first week in the November, a $6500000 viaduct 5,865 ft. long, with its eastern terminus at central avenue. Dr. Watson's interest in the project has been continuos since its inception.

Cubitt's first waterway project was the Norwich & Lowestoft Navigation, then he engineered the straightening of the northern part of the Oxford Canal. He became Telford's successor on what is now known as the Shropshire Union Canal and on the Ulster Canal. His largest waterway scheme was the improvement of the River Servern, including building four locks and weirs.

Docks schemes included Lowestoft, Ellesmere Port, Cardiff and Middlesbrough.

FRITZ LEONHARDT, professor and former rector (president) of Stuttgart University, Germany, died on December 30, 1999. He was born in Stuttgart and received his university education at Stuttgart University. He carried on graduate studies at Purdue University in 1932 and 1933, returning to Stuttgart University to obtain his doctorate of engineering in 1938.

In 1939, after his collaboration with Wolfhart Andra, in the successful design of Europe's largest suspension bridge across the Rhine at Cologne, he formed the partnership of Leonhardt Andra and Partners, which became one of the world's best-known designers of major bridges.

Conde B. McCullough was born in Redfield, South Dakota, but his family soon moved to Fort Dodge, Iowa, where he attended school and graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in civil engineering in 1910.

His firs job was as an assistant engineer in the Iowa Highway Commission, where he soon rose to the position of design engineer. While there, he researched bridges and their design for a lawsuit filed in connection with some bridges that had not been accepted under the existing building codes.

"My father was an architect," he explains, "but my professional choice was civil engineering because it covers a much wider range than architecture - bridges, towers, roads, dams - and gives greater scope." But despite the options and freedom that the profession offered, Leonhardt very rapidly demonstrated his interest in bridges. He studied civil engineering in his home town - at Stuttgart University - and after four years studying for his diploma, won an exchange scholarship to the USA to continue his graduate studies. The scholarship was to Purdue University in West-Lafayette, Indiana. While he was there he spent some time working with his uncle on the design of a river bridge in Detroit, but more significantly, when he first arrived in New York, he immediately arranged meetings with David Steinman and Othmar Ammann. Talking to the two greatest living bridge designers in the USA only strengthened his interest in bridges, and this experience was to stand him in good stead when he graduated.

WATSON, WILBUR J. (5 Apr. 1871-22 May 1939), a civil engineer, especially eminent in bridge design, was born in BEREA to David R. and Maria (Parker) Watson. Receiving his B.S. from the Case School of Engineering, Watson developed a carefully stated philosophy of the relationship between engineering and aesthetics and used structural and reinforced concrete to produce some of the most beautiful BRIDGES in northern Ohio. He helped set standards for bridge construction across the country. While employed by OSBORN ENGINEERING CO. in Cleveland, Watson was designing bridges as early as 1898. Marrying Harriett Martha Barnes in 1900, Watson founded his own firm, Wilbur J. Watson & Associates, in 1907.

Thomas Cubitt was responsible for many large London projects including Belgravia centred around Belgrave Square, Pimlico, much of Bloomsbury and the East front of Buckingham Palace. He built three thousand feet of the Thames Embankment at his own expense.

Elsewhere, he build a similarly large development in Brighton called Kemp Town, and Osborne House on the Isle of Wight which was completed in 1851.

Queen Victoria regarded as 'her' Cubitt and after his death said of him "In his sphere of life, with the immense business he had in hand, he is a real national loss. A better, kindhearted or more simple, unassuming man never breathed."