Better known as the "Spruce Goose," the Howard Hughes Flying Boat was designed and built by Hughes Aircraft Co., to be the largest wood-constructed and the largest wingspan airplane ever built. As Hughes perfected his craft, he added significantly to what is known in areas of large-lift capability and power-boost systems. Originally designated the HK-1 in 1942, it was designed to meet wartime troop and material transportation needs (flying just high enough to evade submarine attacks).
Mechanical
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Image Credit: Public Domain (Federal Aviation Administration)Image Caption: Howard Hughes Flying Boat, HK-1Era_date_from: 1947
2002
Known as the Paper City by 1877, this site was a major industrial center with extensive paper mills, textile mills, machine shops, and a water power system that had within a few decades transformed the fields of Ireland Parish into the manufacturing city of Holyoke. A group of Boston investors created the system of dams, canals, mills, streets, and boarding houses, which was incorporated as Holyoke in 1850. Built between 1847 and 1892 according to the original plan, the dam and canals provided work for Irish immigrants and the French Canadians, Germans, and other nationalities.
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Image Credit: Public Domain (Produced Prior to 1/1/1923)Image Caption: Panoramic of the Holyoke Mills (The American Thread Company) on Holyoke Canal, 1909Era_date_from: 1859
1987
The first practical demonstration of this tractor took place in a peat field on Roberts Island on November 24, 1904, and was patented and in production by December of 1907. The existing machine represents the earliest gasoline-powered track-type tractors that were to help revolutionize agriculture, logging, construction, road building, and transportation around the world. Its design and development is credited to Benjamin Holt (1849-1920), president of the Holt Manufacturing Company of Stockton.
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Image Credit: Public Domain (Copyright Expired)Image Caption: The Holt 75 model gasoline-powered Caterpillar tractor used early in World War I as an artillery tractor. Later models were produced without the front "tiller wheel."Era_date_from: 1918
1981
The first long underwater tunnel in the world designed for motor vehicle use was built from 1920 to 1927. The 29.5-foot-diameter, 8,500-foot-long twin tubes of this tunnel were shield-driven by the pneumatic method through extremely difficult river-bottom conditions that were overcome by the ingenuity and determination of its engineers, Clifford M. Holland, Milton H. Freeman, and Ole Singstad. They were the largest in the United States when built.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Bill Benzon (CC BY-SA 2.0)Image Caption: Holland Tunnel Ventilation SystemEra_date_from: 1920
1984
This 350-horsepower Corliss type steam engine is an example of a typical late nineteenth century steam engine. The essential feature of Corliss type engines is the valves that admit steam to and exhaust it from the cylinder. The Corliss valve gear made the engine extremely efficient in steam consumption and was the most efficient system for controlling low to medium speed engines.
This particular engine operated for more than eighty years, having been retired not by age but over concern for stack emissions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The engine was built by the William A.
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Image Credit: Public Domain (National Park Service)Image Caption: Harris-Corliss Steam EngineEra_date_from: 1895
1985
The Hanford B-Reactor was the first plutonium production reactor to be placed in operation. Its success made possible the subsequent development of atomic energy. The research work, engineering, and planning required to make the reactor operate is one of our most advanced achievements. Much of the reactor core, cooling system, shielding, and auxiliary systems were designed by mechanical engineers.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/David Lee (CC BY-SA 2.0)Image Caption: Hanford B ReactorEra_date_from: 1944
1976
This is an old technology brought here by new immigrants. It represents the beginning of modern life in a hard wilderness. This wind-powered gristmill was built in 1870 by Fred Meiss, Jr., and Otto Fiek near Spring Creek, from parts of the first windmill in the new state of Texas, erected by E.G. Witte. The millstones are the ones Witte imported from Europe and are believed to be one of the earliest sets in the United States to survive.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Wikipedia/Larry D. Moore (CC BY-SA 3.0)Image Caption: German RocketEra_date_from: 1944
1991
On April 21, 1949, a completely outdoor turbine-generator was placed into commercial operation at the Greens Bayou electric power plant--the first fully outdoor unit to operate in the United States. The demand for unprecedented quantities of electricity after World War II pressed utilities to provide addition power quickly. The outdoor design, unlike the traditional large turbine hall, resulted in significant reductions in the cost per kilowatt to build the plant.
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Image Credit: Courtesy ASMEImage Caption: Greens Bayou Generator PlantEra_date_from: 1949
1991
A variety of mechanical feeders, including drag-chain conveyors and rotary pocket feeders, historically have been used to volumetrically control the flow of fuel to coal pulverizers on power generators. Most power generation in the United States has relied on burning fossil fuels in steam boilers, with coal as the fuel of choice. By the 1920s, pulverized-firing (the burning in suspension of finely ground coal particles) evolved as means to more complete fuel combustion and higher system efficiencies and facilitated the use of larger boilers.
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Image Caption: Drawing from patent documents for Gravimetric Coal Feeder.Era_date_from: 1957
1995
Designed and built by Fred Graue, a German immigrant, together with William Asche, the Old Graue Mill began operating around 1852 and served the village of Brush Hill (Hinsdale) until World War I. Its undershot waterwheel, wooden gearing system, belt power transmission, bucket elevators, and related bolters and sifters were representative of an ancient technology that began with Roman engineer Vitruvius. It ground wheat, corn, oats, and buckwheat in an era that was on the threshold of the Industrial Revolution.
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Image Credit: Public Domain (Historic American Buildings Survey)Image Caption: Graue MillEra_date_from: 1852
1981
Innovations
The Titan is a 200-ton electrically driven hammerhead cantilever crane, the earliest survivor of this type. It is now all that remains of the once great John Brown Shipyard in Clydebank near Glasgow where many of the world's great ships were built. Designed and constructed by Sir William Arrol…
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The Edger station was the first steam electric plant produced that could tolerate over 1000 psi of pressure. Initially conceived by Mr. Irving Edwin Moultrop, then Assistant Superintendent, Construction Bureau of the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Boston. He guided his company and the…
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The Belle Isle gas turbine was installed in 1949 and was the first gas turbine built in the United States for the purpose of generating electric power. Its low cost and consistency aroused considerable interest in the electric utility industry, both here and abroad. This led ultimately to the…
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The U.S.S. Texas is the last surviving warship of its kind--powered by reciprocating steam engines. It was built during a period in which naval authorities were switching to the newly-developed steam turbine for propulsion, but were unsure of its suitability. Only one more warship, the New York…
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The Paige Compositor was an invention developed by James W. Paige (1842–1917) between 1872 and 1888. It was designed to replace the human typesetter of a lead type-composed printing form with a mechanical arm. In the early 1890s, a group of inventors signed a contract with Towner K.…
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The Magma Copper Mine AC system designed by the Carrier Corporation was the first underground mechanical air conditioning system in North America. The initial installation of refrigerated cooling equipment in the Magma Mine at Superior, Arizona was necessary due to the increase in temperature…
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The Broadmoor Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway (also known as the Pikes Peak Cog Railway) is a cog railway that climbs one of the most iconic mountains in the United States, Pikes Peak in Colorado. The base station is in Manitou Springs, near Colorado Springs.
Construction on the line…
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The crawler-transporters, formally known as the Missile Crawler Transporter Facilities, are a pair of tracked vehicles used to transport spacecraft from NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) along the Crawlerway to Launch Complex 39. They were originally used to transport the Saturn IB and…
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