The Tehachapi Pass Railroad Line was cut through solid and decomposed granite by about 3,000 Chinese laborers using nothing more than picks, shovels, horse drawn carts, and blasting powder. This line, which rises from the San Joaquin Valley and through the Tehachapi Mountains, originally included 18 tunnels, ten bridges and several water towers to accommodate the steam locomotives. Completed in less than two years, it was part of the final line of the first railroad to connect San Francisco with Los Angeles.
USA
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Doug WertmanImage Caption: Tehachapi Pass Railroad LineEra_date_from: 1876
1998
Sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi is credited with bringing the concept of the Statue of Liberty to fruition, deriving inspiration from the 19th-century penchance for grandiose monuments. He originally designed the statue for placement at the Suez Canal, but the project was never commissioned. After a promotional trip across America, Bartholdi's ideas finally took hold in 1874, and a Franco-American coalition was formed to fund the project, with the Americans building the base and the French the statue.
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Image Credit: Public Domain (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)Image Caption: Statue of LibertyEra_date_from: 1886
1985
The Starrucca Viaduct of the Erie Railroad Company crosses Starrucca Creek in Lanesboro, Pennsylvania. It is one of the oldest and one of the longest railroad bridges in Pennsylvania. Its 18 slender, semicircular stone arches each span 50 feet and the structure rises 110 feet above the creek.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Navin Rajagopalan (CC BY-SA 2.0)Image Caption: Starrucca ViaductEra_date_from: 1848
1973
"On 20 March 1886 William Stanley provided alternating current electrification to offices and stores on Main Street in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
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Image Caption: Alternating Current ElectrificationEra_date_from: 1886
2004
New OrleansState: LACountry: USAWebsite: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/history/landmarks/topics-m-z/rail-transportation---2/-101-st--charles-avenue-streetcar-line-%281835%29, https://www.asme.org/getmedia/40ef6e7c-697d-4f77-8daa-059a37f698b3/101-St-Charles-Avenue-Streetcar-Line-1835.aspxCreator: Perley A. Thomas Car Company
The St. Charles Avenue Streetcar Line is the oldest surviving interurban-urban passenger rail transportation system in the United States. Originally incorporated as the New Orleans Carrollton Rail Road in 1833, service began in 1835. A variety of motive power had been used including horses, mules, overhead cable, steam engines, and ammonia engines before electrification in 1893. The 900-series cars presently in service were designed and built by the Perley A. Thomas Car Company of High Point, North Carolina, in 1923 to 1924.
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Image Credit: Original Image: Courtesy Wikipedia/Falkue (CC BY-SA 3.0)Image Caption: St. Charles Avenue Streetcar LineEra_date_from: 1835
1984
The two 3,500-hp steeple compound Unaflow steam engines powering the S.S. Badger represent one of the last types of reciprocating marine steam engines. Built by the Skinner Engine Company, most Unaflow engines are single expansion. These feature tandem high- and low-pressure cylinders separated by a common head. The Badger's four Foster-Wheeler Type D marine boilers, which supply 470-psig steam to the engines, are among the last coal-fired marine boilers built.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/ssbadger (CC BY 2.0)Image Caption: SS Badger CarferryEra_date_from: 1952
1996
The SS Jeremiah O'Brien, an emergency cargo vessel of the type EC2-S-C1 better known as Liberty Ships, is one of two operative survivors of 2,751 ships, the largest fleet of single class ever built. The other is the SS John W. Brown, now in Baltimore (not operative at the time of the landmark designation). Between March 1941 and November 1945, eighteen US shipyards produced 2,751 ships. The design stressed minimum cost, rapidity of construction, and simplicity of operation. The original design and configuration have not been altered.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Wikipedia/Sanfranman59 (CC BY-SA 3.0)Image Caption: SS Jeremiah O'Brien 1Era_date_from: 1942
1984
George Washington's concern over standardization of rifles for the Continental Army led to the formation of national armory and to his selection of Springfield as its site. Completed in 1794, it was the first national armory in the United States. Like the Robbins and Lawrence Armory, the Springfield Armory was an outstanding machining center for the design and mass production, employing notable engineers such as Thomas Blanchard (1788-1864), Thomas Warner, and Cyrus Buckland.
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Image Caption: This illustration from 1850 shows the growth of Springfield Armory since its inception in 1794. The building in the foreground is the Main Arsenal building that acts as the Springfield Armory National Historic Site visitor center today.Era_date_from: 1794
1980
GainesvilleState: FLCountry: USAWebsite: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/history/landmarks/topics-m-z/research-and-development/-223-solar-energy-and-energy-conversion-laboratory, https://www.asme.org/getmedia/6ab985e7-a7b5-4c91-b4d7-8c32af04334c/223-Solar-Energy-and-Energy-Conversion-Laboratory.aspxCreator: Farber, Erich
This highly diverse facility has pioneered the development of solar energy applications worldwide. The Solar Energy and Energy Conversion Laboratory (SEECL) was unique in developing practical solar energy devices based on established principles of thermodynamics, heat transfer, and fluid mechanics long before solar energy was considered a serious energy alternative.
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Image Credit: Courtesy ASMEImage Caption: The SEECL was originally located at the Gianesville Regional Airport. Early experimental devices stood on the pad near the WW II bunker (early 1950s).Era_date_from: 1954
2003
This was one of the first power facilities to demonstrate the feasibility of long distance electric power transmission. Through an elaborate switchboard at the main station, tied to similar boards at substations, a complete circuit was created to drive an electric motor 153 miles from the generator a remarkable distance at that time.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Allen Sheffield (CC BY 2.0)Image Caption: Snoqualmie FallsEra_date_from: 1899
1981
Innovations
Pearson Field, named for U.S. Army Lt. Alexander Pearson Jr., a prominent early aviator who died in an airplane crash in 1925, is the oldest continuously operating airfield in the Pacific Northwest, and one of the oldest in the United States. In 1905, the field, then known as the Fort Vancouver…
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College Park Airport was founded in 1909 when the Wright Brothers came here to train the first military officers to fly in the givernment's first airplane. The airport is the oldest continuously operated airport in the world, and has come to be known as "The Field of Firsts" due to it being the…
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Established in 1946 to provide a comprehensive test and evaluation site for tactical missiles, Point Mugu has been instrumental in the development, test, evaluation and in-service support of systems including Regulus, Sparrow, Phoenix, Bullpup, Harpoon, SLAM, Tomahawk, Standard, and Rolling…
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On this 84-acre meadow in 1904 and 1905, the Wright Brothers successfully mastered the mechanics of controlled, powered, heavier-than-air flight. The brothers also built the world’s first airport here, and in 1910 the Wright Company School of Aviation established a flying school on…
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This former shipyard was the first home of the The Boeing Company, founded in 1916. Affectionately called the Red Barn, this structure was built in 1909, and became the historic birthplace of Boeing aircraft production. Starting with the Boeing Model C, all early Boeing production…
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The 1940 Air Terminal is a beautiful and rare example of classic art deco airport architecture from the golden age of flight. Designed by noted architect Joseph Finger, the Terminal was built to meet Houston’s growing role as a major center for air commerce in the 1930s. Its grand…
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Lunken Field, now also known as Cincinnati Municipal Lunken Airport, opened in 1925 on ground purchased from the Cincinnati Polo Club. The nation’s largest municipal airport at the time, it attracted several aerospace enterprises, starting with early aviator J. Richard “Dixie” Davis, who…
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The Cincinnati Observatory, “The Birthplace of American Astronomy,” is the oldest professional observatory in the United States. Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel, the “Father of American Astronomy,” founded the observatory in 1842. John Quincy Adams laid the cornerstone for the…
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This rocket propulsion test complex was created to flight-certify all first and second stages of the Apollo Saturn V rocket. The first test-firing occurred on April 23, 1966. Subsequent to the Apollo Program, these test stands were modified to support the testing requirements of the…
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On March 16, 1926 Dr. Robert H. Goddard, also known as "the father of modern rocketry," launched the world’s first liquid propellant rocket from a point 1000 feet S.S.E. of the plaque on the property of the Asa M. Ward Family. Erected by the American Rocket…
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This site, formerly known as Oakland Municipal Airport, served as the gateway to the Pacific during aviation’s pioneering age of trans-Pacific flight. Among other notable events, Albert Hegenberger and Lester Maitland departed from the airfield on 28 June 1927 on the first flight…
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The first company in the United States dedicated solely to the production of the liquid rocket engine, Reaction Motors, Inc. (RMI) was formed in 1941. Its four founders were rocket enthusiasts and members of the American Rocket Society. RMI developed the rocket motors that powered…
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Built in 1880 as the Piccatinny Powder Depot, this site was the major supplier of smokeless powder to the military for many years. Since World War II, Picatinny Arsenal has been at the forefront of research, design, and development of a wide variety of advanced munitions for ground, airborne and…
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On 15 November 1950, the SSFL conducted its first official test with a Rocketdyne-designed XLR43-NA-1 large liquid propellant rocket engine, which later became the Redstone engine. Encompassing 2558 acres, 18 large static test stands, 5 component test laboratories and an advanced…
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On this site, which was the Dutch Flats Airport, Charles A. Lindbergh made the first flight of his Spirit of St. Louis airplane, constructed in 60 days by dedicated employees of Ryan Airlines, Inc. The 20-minute flight on 28 April 1927 was witnessed by those who built the aircraft.…
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The Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, now the core of the Langley Research Center, was a unique facility that served as the nexus of aerodynamic research in the U.S. from its beginning in 1917 to its transformation into NASA’s Langley Research Center in 1958. It achieved…
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T.S.C. Lowe’s Observation Flight
Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe demonstrated the use of a hydrogen-filled balloon in aerial reconnaissance through a series of tethered ascents in June, 1861 in front of…
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The Purdue University Airport was the first collegiate owned airport in the United States. It hosted Amelia Earhart for her final adventure, was the training ground for test pilots such a Jimmy Johnson and Ivan Kincheloe, balloonist Malcolm Ross, and astronaut Neil Armstrong.…
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This site, originally the home of the Eclipse-Pioneer Division of the Bendix Aviation Corporation, has produced navigational instruments and engine components since 1938. Providing instruments that flew with Lindbergh across the Atlantic, and Admiral Byrd in the cold of Antarctica;…
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