Engineering

the King Iron Bridge & Manufacturing Company of Cleveland, Ohio (later the King Bridge Company) was founded by Zenas King in 1858. Many of the Company's bridges were used during America's expansion West in the late 1800's and early 1900's and some of these bridges are still standing today. The bridge pictured on this website represent some of the beautiful King iron bridges. We are trying to locate any existing ones in order to preserve these pieces of American history.

Eugene C. Figg, Jr.: Born on 4 August 1936 in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. Deceased on 20 March 2002 in Tallahassee, Florida, USA. Associated with the following firms:Formerly:Founder(s): Barrett, Daffin & Figg; Figg & Muller Engineers; Figg Engineering Group. Participation in the following structures:Designer: Natchez Trace Parkway Arches (1994), Sagadahoc Bridge (2000), Seven Mile Bridge (1982), Sunshine Skyway Bridge (1987).

The Zoarville Station Bridge at Camp Tuscazoar is the only Fink Through-Truss bridge known to exist in the United States. The builders of this example, Smith, Latrobe and Co. of Baltimore, MD specialized in this type. Originally part of the three-span bridge over the Tuscarawas River in Dover, this span was moved to its present site over One Leg Creek, now called Conotton Creek, when the bridge was replaced in 1905. Recently acquired by the Camp Tuscazoar Foundation, this interesting architectural treasure has become the newest camp landmark. We are executing plans now for the bridge's full restoration but it already is a great hiking destination and teaches our campers about some of the rich local history of the area surrounding our camp.

Bridges are employed to support weight over an open space, and transfer this weight to their supports, or abutments. They may be fundamentally classified by the reactions they exert upon their abutments. They may push on the abutments, pull on them, or simply rest on the abutments without horizontal forces. In general, the production of horzontal forces in the bridge structure is the cost of transferring the weight of bridge and load to the abutments. Bridges are generally, and less fundamentally, classified by the type of construction. Arch bridges push on their abutments, suspension bridges pull on them, while beams and trusses rest on their abutments without horizontal forces. The term beam is used when the material of the bridge is in a single piece, such as a log or a plate girder, while a truss is built up of pieces, called members. A truss generally has an upper chord in compression, a lower chord in tension, and web members consisting of diagonal or vertical ties (if in tension) or posts (if in compression).

RENNIE, JOHN, a celebrated civil engineer, was the youngest son of a respectable farmer at Phantassie, in East Lothian, where he was born, June 7, 1761. Before he had attained his sixth year, he had the misfortune to lose his father; his education, nevertheless, was carried on at the parish school (Prestonkirk) by his surviving relatives. The peculiar talents of young Rennie seem to have been called forth and fostered by his proximity to the workshop of the celebrated mechanic, Andrew Meikle, the inventor or improver of the thrashing-machine. He frequently visited that scene of mechanism, to admire the complicated processes which he saw going forward, and amuse himself with the tools of the workmen. In time, he began to imitate at home the models of machinery which he saw there; and at the early age of ten he had made the model of a wind-mill, a steam-engine, and a pile-engine, the last of which is said to have exhibited much practical dexterity.

Born in Berne, Switzerland, future structural engineering visionary Robert Malliart earned a degree in civil engineering from the Federal Polytechnical Institute in Zurich in 1894. Malliart established his own design-construction company in 1902 and moved the firm to Russia in 1912, only to see it fail during the Russian Revolution five years later.
In a two-year span before the move to Russia, Malliart entered five major bridge competitions, although judging bodies typically preferred bridges more conventional than young Malliart’s. Regardless of the design competitions, continued innovative bridge designs produced notoriety for him.

Of glance...
Edgar António of Mosque Cardoso was born in the Port in 11 of May of 1913 and formou­se in Civil Engineering in the College of Engineering of the University of the Port in 1937.
Professor University professor of the Upper Institute Technician - University Technique of Lisbon.
Honoris doctor Cause for the Federal University of Rio De Janeiro.
He was Together Engineer in the Autonomous one of the Roads up to 1951.
He is as draftsperson of Bridges that more if notabiliza.

Eugene Figg, Jr., loves bridges. His company, the Figg Engineering Group, of Tallahassee, Florida, is the only national engineering firm in America that does nothing but bridges. He loves to talk about the bridges he’s built, how they’re faring, how the people who own them feel about them now.

He’s proud of the ones that came in early and under budget (like the Natchez Trace Parkway Arches, budgeted for $15 million, brought in for $11 million). He’s equally proud of the ones that won major design awards. The National Endowment for the Arts began giving Presidential Design Awards in 1984. A total of 41 awards have been given, only five for bridges, and Figg got three of those: Lin Cove Viaduct in North Carolina (1984), Sunshine Sky Bridge in Florida (1988) and the Natchez Trace Parkway Arches in Tennessee (1995). Figg’s pride in his bridges doesn’t come off like vanity; it’s more like a parent talking to anyone who’ll listen about a child who is doing well in the world.

He was in Buffalo last week for a conference of the Association for Bridge Construction and Design, where he spoke about bridge permitting and community involvement issues, and about the community design charettes for which he has become famous. He also managed to talk with a good number of people involved in the Peace Bridge expansion: Buffalo Development Commissioner Joseph Ryan, Common Council President James Pitts, the Buffalo News editorial board, the Public Bridge Review Panel’s Technical Review Subcommittee, and about 75 people at D’Youville College, a meeting incorporated into one of the New Millennium Group’s informational sessions.

The Louisville-Nashville Railroad Bridge, constructed in 1857-1859 as part of the Louisville-Nashville Railway System, spans the Green River and is still used by trains of the current CSX system in its reconstructed form. During the construction of the L&N railroad, the Green River presented a formidable obstacle that had to be surmounted. A well-known construction engineer from Germany, Albert Fink, was hired to design and supervise the construction of a massive structure over the Green River. He planned to support the tracks and all trains over this bridge by constructing an elaborate trusswork of his own design supported by four enormous and intricately detailed stone piers. John W. Key of Woodsonville and his two sons, Abner David Lewis Key and John Martin Key, all stonemasons, were hired to construct the piers.

Mid-19th century advertisement for Wendell Bollman from a City Directory , a civil and constructing engineer noted for his truss bridges. An engraving in the ad. shows a truss bridge with a Civil War era locomotive about to cross it. The address for Bollman's works was given as Clinton Street and Second Avenue, Canton.