1919

The Hydraulics Laboratory at The University of Iowa, renovated in 2001 and in 2003 renamed the C. Maxwell Stanley Hydraulics Laboratory, is the oldest university-based hydraulics laboratory in the U.S. that continuously has focused on research, education, and service in hydraulic engineering. Since its initial construction in 1919, the facility and staff have produced a massive amount of research that has shaped water-related constructs around the world. Its efforts have been guided by noted directors such as Floyd Nagler (1920-1933), Hunter Rouse (1944-1965), and John F.

This was America's first large-scale activated sludge plant. The successful operation of Milwaukee's sewage treatment plant led the way for many other American municipalities to adopt its methods of efficient environmental recycling.

Prior to 1925, sewage and industrial waste from the City of Milwaukee and its suburbs (then population 500,000) was discharged to the Milwaukee, Menomonee, and Kinnickinnic rivers, which converge in Milwaukee and flow together through a single outlet into Lake Michigan.