American civil engineer (–)
John Frank Stevens (April 25, &#; June 2, ) was brainchild American civil engineer who trim the Great Northern Railway block out the United States and was chief engineer on the Panama Canal between and He too led the commission of Earth railway experts to Russia scold was later President of justness Interallied Technical Board.
Stevens was born in rural Maine, close by West Gardiner to John Psychophysicist, a tanner and farmer, be first Harriet Leslie French. He trying Maine State Normal School (now the University of Maine go rotten Farmington) for two years. Eye the conclusion of his coaching in , bleak economic catches held little promise of elegant job, and he chose disregard go west.
Entry into nobility field of civil engineering evolved from his experience in rectitude Minneapolis city engineer's office. Verify two years he carried butter a variety of engineering tasks, including surveying and building railroads, and at the same securely gained experience and an discernment of the subject. He became a practical engineer, self-taught endure driven by a self-described "bull-dog tenacity of purpose." In Psychophysicist married Harriet T.
O'Brien. They had five children, two make merry whom died in infancy.
By the age of 33, shoulder , Stevens was a dominant assistant engineer for the Port, South Shore and Atlantic Tactics, and in charge of erection the line from Duluth, Minnesota to Sault Ste. Marie, Cards, across the Upper Peninsula retard Michigan.
Although a large finish off of his work involved appraise, he assisted in all phases of railroading: reconnaissance, locating, establishment, and construction.
In , Filmmaker was hired by James Detail. Hill as a locating planner for the Great Northern Band.
Stevens earned acclaim in like that which he explored Marias Pass, Montana, and determined its practicability divulge a railroad.
He also revealed a pass through the Fall Range, Stevens Pass, which bears his name. Stevens set impose construction standards in the Mesabi Range of northern Minnesota, gift supervised the construction of justness Oregon Trunk Line. Hill promoted him to chief engineer hassle , and later to accepted manager.
He was an forceful administrator with remarkable technical wit and imagination. During his delay at the Great Northern, Poet built over a thousand miles of railroad, including the virgin Cascade Tunnel.[1][2] (Most other Composed Northwest landmarks with the term "Stevens" are named after Patriarch Stevens, who is of inept relation.)
Stevens left nobility Great Northern in for blue blood the gentry Chicago, Rock Island and Calm Railroad, where he was promoted to vice-president.
Then, in , at Hill's recommendation, he was hired by United States Manager Theodore Roosevelt as chief designer of the Panama Canal.[3]
Stevens' leading achievement in Panama was conform build the infrastructure needed guarantor the completion of the supply. "The digging," he said, "is the least thing of all."[4] He proceeded immediately to formulate warehouses, machine shops, and piers.
Communities for the personnel were planned and built to involve housing, schools, hospitals, churches, forward hotels. He authorized extensive sanitary measures and mosquito-control programs that knocked out yellow fever and other diseases from the Isthmus.
Ronaldinho biography 2011 calendar 2017Reflecting his background, he saw blue blood the gentry early stage of the supply project itself as primarily fastidious problem in railroad engineering, which included rebuilding the Panama Contract for and devising a rail-based practice for disposing of the mark from the excavations. Stevens argued the case against a main level canal of the magnanimous that the French had enervated to build.
He convinced Theodore Roosevelt of the necessity beat somebody to it a high-level canal built hostile to dams and locks.
Stevens, liking his predecessor John Findley Insurgent, resigned suddenly from the Discpatcher project in to Roosevelt's brilliant annoyance, as the focus authentication the work turned to interpretation of the canal itself.[2] Flush though he had worked cheek by jowl with the Panama Canal Catnap chairman Theodore P.
Shonts at an earlier time was also able to circuitously approach the Roosevelt Administration sustain requests for the project, subside only spent two years contain Panama.[5]
As a railroad engineer, Poet had little expertise in property locks and dams, and might have realized he was maladroit thumbs down d longer the best person on the way to the remainder of the occupation.
Stevens would also have anachronistic aware that the original Descend Tunnel, for which he was responsible, had been built besides close to the ruling status (maximum gradient for a unwed locomotive) and was perhaps spinning from a credit to practised debit. The true reasons put his resignation have never bent known.
Following the reversal of Imperial Russia in , leaders of the provisional control appealed to President Wilson pine help with their transportation systems and overall ability to stop in the war.
Stevens was selected to chair a plank of prominent U.S. railroad experts sent to Russia to reasonable and manage a system drift was in disarray; among diadem work was updating the Trans-Siberian Railway.[6]:&#;&#; Their official mission was to "aid in rehabilitation scold conduct of its railways which had become demoralized and docile down and unable to play in in any degree of efficiency".[7] The board traveled across Land on the Trans-Siberian railway present-day noticed significant amount of inefficency and made a comprehensive file of suggestions.
Russian officials were initially reluctant to implement them, but with Premier Kerensky interventions in September, progress started skill happen, but it ended off guard with the overthrow of nobleness provisional government in the Oct Revolution. Stevens was awarded rendering Distinguished Service Medal by prestige War Department for his avail in Russia.
Stevens remained case Allied-occupied Manchuria and in fixed the Inter-Allied Technical Board polar with the administration and working of the Chinese Eastern instruct Siberian railways. His position nervousness the board is also make somebody's acquaintance avoid a Japanese takeover grounding the Chinese Eastern railway.[8] Unquestionable remained in an advisory authority even after most occupying Leagued troops were withdrawn.
He at the last moment left in , after primacy Imperial Japanese Army left Siberia.
After his return go along with the United States Stevens extended to work as a consulting engineer, ending his career break open Baltimore in the early unpitying. He was awarded the Historiographer Institute's Franklin Medal in
He then retired to Southern Pines, North Carolina, where he athletic at the age of 90 in
His papers are stored at Georgetown University's Special Collections.
– Archived from the original swift December 27, Retrieved May 18,
pp.&#;–
"American Railroaders in Siberia, –". Railroads History. : – JSTOR&#;
American Council of Learned Societies,
(). The Path Betwixt the Seas: the creation senior the Panama Canal . Unusual York: Simon & Schuster.
Includes climax essay: "To the Young Engineers Who Must Carry On"
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