James Eads
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James Buchanan Eads (1820-1887) was a self-taught civil engineer who first made a fortune salvaging material from wreckage at the bottom of the Mississippi River, and then built for $10 million the Eads Bridge that was the largest of its time after the Civil War.
Eads was an innovative, but demanding, engineer who had the audacity to return a massive amount of steel to Andrew Carnegie's company because its quality was not high enough for Eads. His bridge was such a marvel of engineer that it continues to carry trains, cars, and pedestrians across the river to this day.
This bridge accomplished many "firsts":
- first steel-truss bridge
- first bridge to carry railroad tracks
- first major bridge over the Mississippi River
- first to rely entirely on cantilever construction for its superstructure
- first to use tubular cord members
- first in the U.S. to use pneumatic caissons in constructing piers, sunk to a record-breaking depth of 123 feet
Construction began in 1867 and it was dedicated on July 4, 1874.[1]His project was not commercially successful at the time.