Roebling, John Augustus
Born: Jun 12, 1806 AD
Died: 1869 AD, at 63 years of age.
Nationality:
American
Categories:
Engineers
1806 - Born on the 12th of June in Mühlhausen.
1826 - He studied architecture and engineering under Rabe and Sluter, bridge construction and foundation construction under Dietleyn, hydraulics under Eytelwein, languages, and philosophy, graduating in with a degree in Civil Engineering.
1831 - On the 22nd of May, Roebling left Germany with his brother Karl and 40 friends and acquaintances.
- This period in European history left Prussia with a great deal of political unrest, as authoritarian governments traded places with democratic ones. John and Karl, along with the people who accompanied them on the trans-Atlantic journey, purchased 1582 acres of land on the 28th of October, in Butler County, Pennsylvania and established a settlement, called Saxonburg.
1844 - Roebling won a bid to replace the wooden canal aqueduct across the Allegheny River.
1848 - Roebling undertook the construction of four suspension aqueducts on the Delaware and Hudson Canal. During this period, he moved to Trenton, New Jersey.
1851 - Roebling's next project, was a railroad bridge connecting the New York Central and Great Western Railway of Canada over the Niagara River, which would take four years.
1858 - Roebling started another suspension bridge at Pittsburgh, this one of 1,030 feet, divided into two spans of 344 feet each, and two side spans of 171 feet each.
1867 - Roebling started design work on Brooklyn Bridge spanning the East River in New York.
1869 - Died on the 22nd of July.
Page last updated: 1:35pm, 10th Jul '07