BROOKLYN BRIDGE


“I’VE LIVED THROUGH HARD TIMES BEFORE AND I CAN DO IT AGAIN:” WASHINGTON A. ROEBLING, THE CIVIL WAR AND BUILDING


CLIFFORD ZINK


Two anniversaries this year highlight the remarkable life of Washington A. Roebling, who served as the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge (Fig. 1) and as the president of the John A. Roeblings Sons Company, which for many decades was the primary manufacture of wire rope in the U.S.


Te Brooklyn Bridge opened to world acclaim 130 years ago in 1883, and at the Battle of Gettysburg 150 years ago in 1863, Washington Roebling notably helped the Union Arm defend the key position of Little Round Top from a Confederate assault. Washington was born in 1837 in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, the


town founded by his father, John A. Roebling, the German-born engineer who was the preeminent designer and builder of suspension bridges in the 19th Century. John completed the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge in 1855, the Cincinnati-Covington Suspension Bridge (now known as the John A. Roebling Bridge), in 1867, and he designed the Brooklyn Bridge and served as its Chief Engineer until his death in 1869 from an injury while preparing for its construction.


20 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2013 WIRE ROPE EXCHANGE While working as an engineer for the Pennsylvania Canal


System in 1841, John made a wire rope on his Saxonburg farm to replace the costly hemp ropes used to haul canal boats on inclined planes over the Allegheny Mountains. He had never seen a wire rope but had read about this innovation in Germany, and he devised a rope walk that removed the twist in wires as they were wound around a core wire, a process that he recognized as essential. He remarkably made 19-wire strands and twisted them into 1½ in., 7x19 wire ropes for the inclined planes. As demand grew for his engineering work and his wire ropes,


John moved in 1849 to a site in Trenton on the Delaware & Raritan Canal that was suggested by Peter Cooper, the famous iron master and founder of Cooper Union in New York. Cooper


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