The Port Washington Power Plant of the Wisconsin Electric Company was the most thermally efficient steam power plant in the world for many years following its opening in 1935. Its design reflected the cumulative experience of the utility's engineers in burning pulverized coal at the Oneida Street Plant and the Lakeside Station in Milwaukee.
USA
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Image Credit: Courtesy ASMEImage Caption: The dedication of Port Washington Power Plant coincided with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the city in which it is located.Era_date_from: 1935
1980
Used to lift molten iron to molds where it was cast into pipe, jib cranes were the sole means of conveyance in the pit-casting process. When pit casting was replaced by centrifugal casting in the 1920s, many pits were filled and the cranes were used to produce cast iron fittings or general maintenance work. Only one jib crane remained at the American Cast Iron Pipe Company in recent years, and it was probably the last pit-cast jib crane to operate, which it did until it was given to the Sloss Furnace Museum in early 1986.
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Image Credit: Courtesy ASMEImage Caption: The crane as it is used today, in general serviceEra_date_from: 1905
1977
In the late 1920s, the automobile cut railroad passenger service by more than half. The debut of the Pioneer Zephyr heralded a comeback in 1934, touring the country and being seen by some two million people in 222 cities.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Steve Wilson (CC BY 2.0)Image Caption: Pioneer ZephyrEra_date_from: 1934
1980
The economic situation in the whale oil business (for lighting), coupled with the increased demand for lubricants, stimulated growth in the U.S. petroleum industry. The drilling of the heavy, sulfurous, and asphaltic California crude began in the 1870s at the Pico Canyon area, using the apparatus and techniques from Titusville, Pennsylvania, developments.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Konrad Summers (CC BY-SA 2.0)Image Caption: Pioneer Oil Refinery California Star Oil WorksEra_date_from: 1876
1975
This was the first successful machine for mechanizing the identification and price marking of retail merchandise. At a single stroke of the operating handle, the machine formed a tag from a roll of stock, imprinted it with price and other information, formed a wire staple, and stapled the tag to the merchandise. This means for dispensing with handmade and written tags amounted to a minor revolution in the then rapidly expanding retail industry.
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Image Credit: Courtesy ASMEImage Caption: Pin-Ticketing MachineEra_date_from: 1902
1990
After an initial difficulty in attracting customers (who were used to getting their water from public pumps and private wells and cisterns), Philadelphia's waterworks soon couldn't keep up with demand. John Davis and Frederick Graff designed a complete remodeling of the system in 1811 so that it could supply the city's growing needs.
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Image Credit: Public Domain (National Park Service)Image Caption: Philadelphia Municipal Water SupplyEra_date_from: 1801
1974
Philadelphia City Hall was the largest masonry load-bearing wall building in the world at the time of its completion in 1901, stood as the tallest occupied building in the United States until 1909, and still is the largest city hall in the United States. The building covers 14.26 acres, originally contained 634 rooms with over 1 million square feet of space, and with its tower and statue of William Penn rises a total of 548 feet above the ground. The construction of Philadelphia City Hall began in 1872 and was completed in 1901.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/elPadawan (CC BY-SA 2.0)Image Caption: Philadelphia City HallEra_date_from: 1901
2005
BreezewoodHarrisburgState: PACountry: USAWebsite: http://www.asce.org/project/pennsylvania-tunpike-(old-section)/Creator: Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission
The Pennsylvania Turnpike was the first American paved highway of the automobile era in which tolls alone were expected to pay all project costs. The 160-mile roadway, which cut an east-west path from Pittsburgh to the state capital of Harrisburg, was considered a revolutionary example of transportation system design and served as a model for the Interstate Highway System.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Doug Kerr (CC BY-SA 2.0)Image Caption: Pennsylvania Turnpike (Old Section)Era_date_from: 1940
1988
Water wheels have been used to power mills and pumps for centuries. However, the traditional water wheel was inefficient: water hitting a bucket would splash back against the next bucket, slowing the wheel. This is especially true when water is delivered to the buckets under very high pressure.
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Image Credit: Public Domain (Author's Choice)Image Caption: Pelton Impulse Water WheelEra_date_from: 1878
1973
No image dominates the Midwestern landscape like the monolithic grain elevator, whose present shape and construction owe much to grain company operator Frank Peavy and architect-builder Charles Haglin.
Wanting to improve on the flammability and cost of traditional wood-cribbed construction, Peavy speculated that reinforced concrete, in its infancy at the turn of the century, would outperform other materials. But critics feared that the elevator would collapse due to the vacuum created when grain was emptied from the air-tight structure.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Wikipedia/Original Uploader was Elkman (CC BY-SA 3.0)Image Caption: Peavey-Haglin Concrete Grain ElevatorEra_date_from: 1900
1983
Innovations
Scoates Hall 1932 A Historic Landmark of Agricultural Engineering Named for Daniels Scoates Designer of this Building Professor and Head Department of Agricultural Engineering 1919 to 1939 Eleventh President of ASAE Teacher, Writer, Engineer Counselor to Youth, His Example Still Inspires.…
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In 1941, near Palouse, Washington, Raymond A. Hanson conceived of a self-leveling mechanism for hillside combines. On the steep hills in the Pacific Northwest, leveling is necessary to save grain because of the gravity grain separation mechanism. Before the Hanson invention, manual…
Read MoreIn 1850, E. W. Quincy of Illinois patented an open-roll ear-snapping mechanism. A series of innovations led to corn heads for combines. Harvesting corn with corn pickers using open rolls on corn pickers after 1925 proved to be dangerous as farmers often needed to clear stalks from the…
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Brothers Cyril and Louis Keller designed and built the first small, lightweight, three-wheel, front-end loader in their machinist-blacksmith shop in Rothsay, Minnesota. A local farmer wanted to mechanize cleaning manure from his obstacle-filled, two-story turkey barn. The machine, first…
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A Crucial Step In The Evolution Of Modern Animal Agriculture Was The Development Of Mechanical Ventilation Methods For Animal Housing. Air Inlets Are Pivotal To Good Ventilation. In 1948 William F. Millier, Working At Cornell University Under The Direction Of Professor Clesson Turner,…
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Slow Moving Vehicle (SMV) Emblem Makes Significant Contributions To Agricultural And Highway Safety Worldwide. 1961- 63 Developed By Kenneth A. Harkness, Department Of Agricultural Engineering On The Ohio State University Campus. 1964 Became An ASAE Standard 1968 Specified In National…
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Historically, Farm Tillage Tools Were Designed Without Scientific Knowledge Of How Tools Work The Soil. Thus, A Tool Designed To Operate In One Soil Pulled By A Mule Might Not Operate Satisfactorily In Another Soil Or When Pulled By A Tractor At Higher Speeds. Traction And Flotation Problems…
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Prior to the development of circular, corrugated, galvanized steel grain bins, prefabricated, non-corrugated steel bins were used because of cost, portability, rodent resistance and waterproof features, but bin capacity was limited. In the 1920's, corrugated bins, which were larger in…
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In 1894, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and his brother, Will Keith (W.K.) Kellogg, were making a granola type cereal for their patients in the Battle Creek Sanitarium, a general health facility in Michigan. This granola cereal was made from wheat that was boiled, rolled into a sheet, toasted,…
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On June 30, 1857, James Oliver filed a patent application for chilling the wear face of cast-iron moldboard plows. While pouring molten cast iron in sand molds he circulated hot water through chillers to regulate the rate of cooling. Oliver's control of raw material content and…
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The object of the Red Wing project was "To determine the optimum economic uses of electricity in agriculture and to study the value of electricity in improved living conditions on the farm." Although not the first service to farms in the U.S., it was likely the first built as an…
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Since 1948, over 11,000 dams and associated conservation practices in more than 2,000 watershed projects encompassing 160 million acres in 47 states have been constructed as a part of the USDA Small Watershed Program. These projects have improved the quality of life and the environment in…
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First Tower Silo Designated A Historic Landmark Of Agricultural Engineering. The First Tower Silo In America Was Erected Near This Site On The Hatch Farm, One Half-Mile East Of Spring Grove, Illinois. Fred L. Hatch And His Father, Lewis Hatch, Erected This Silo In October 1873, After Fred…
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In 1942, University of California, Davis (UCD) biologist, Jack Hanna recognized the need for breeding tomato varieties that ripen uniformly and withstand the rigors of mechanical harvesting. In 1949, UCD agricultural engineer Coby Lorenzen and Hanna began developing a mechanical tomato…
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The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) was developed at the USDA National Runoff and Soil Loss Data Center at Purdue University in a national effort led by Walter H. Wischmeier and Dwight D. Smith. The USLE was published in 1965 in USDA Agriculture Handbook 282.
The USLE is…
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Design Concepts For Vegetated Waterways - Historic Landmark of Agricultural Engineering Rainfall runoff causes severe gully erosion on unprotected lands and has ruined thousands of U S acres in the past. Concepts were developed at this site for vegetation-lined waterways that now safely…
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Ackley Bridge is an excellent example of a multiple kingpost truss and a noteworthy early example of covered bridge preservation efforts in the United States. Built in 1832 by Joshua Ackley (b.1805) and Daniel Clouse (b.1812), Ackley Bridge originally spanned Enslow’s Branch of Wheeling Creek…
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The Ashuelot Covered Bridge is located at the center of Ashuelot, NH. It is a Town lattice truss bridge, spanning the Ashuelot River in a roughly north-south orientation. It consists of two spans with a total length of 178 feet (54 m). The total width of the bridge is 29 feet (8.8 m), and has a…
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Bunker Hill Bridge is the only surviving Haupt truss bridge in the U.S. and one of only two surviving covered bridges in North Carolina. Patented in 1839, the Haupt truss featured diagonal braces spanning multiple panels, which was an attempt to eliminate the cross-strain found in lattice truss…
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Doe River Bridge is a fine example of a timber Howe truss, one of the most widely-used timber bridge designs. Built in 1884, this structure played an integral role in the development of the City of Elizabethton, Tennessee, and it is a rare example of a covered bridge that survives in an urban…
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