Captain James Buchanan Eads (May 23, 1820 – March 8, 1887) was a world-renowned American civil engineer and inventor, holding more than 50
patents.
Eads' great
Mississippi River Bridge at
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
was designated a National Historic Landmark by the Department of the Interior in 1964 and on October 21, 1974 was listed as a
National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark
__NOTOC__
The following is a list of Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks as designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers since it began the program in 1964. The designation is granted to projects, structures, and sites in the United State ...
by the
American Society of Civil Engineers
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
. It was also awarded a Special Award of Recognition by the American Institute of Steel Construction in 1974 on the 100th anniversary of its entry into service. Eads' design for the jetties of the south pass of the Mississippi river was also designated as National Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks in 1982.
Early life and education
Eads was born in
Lawrenceburg, Indiana
Lawrenceburg is a city in Dearborn County, Indiana, United States. The population was 5,042 at the 2010 census. The city is the county seat and largest city of Dearborn County. Lawrenceburg is in southeast Indiana, on the Ohio River west of Cinc ...
, and named for his mother's cousin, future President of the United States
James Buchanan. Eads' father, Thomas C. Eads pursued a fortune to no avail and the family moved several times.
Eads grew up in
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
. The family lost all of their possessions in a steamboat fire as they landed in St. Louis in 1833.
Thomas Eads' business ventures in St. Louis failed, and he abandoned his family and moved upriver.
James Eads was largely
self-educated; at the age of 13, he left school to take up work to help support the family. He sold apples on the streets of St. Louis to help support his sisters and mother, who ran a boardinghouse.
One of his first jobs was at the Williams & Duhring
dry-goods store run by Barrett Williams. Williams allowed the young Eads to spend time in his library, located above the store. In Eads's spare time, he read books on
physical science
Physical science is a branch of natural science that studies non-living systems, in contrast to life science. It in turn has many branches, each referred to as a "physical science", together called the "physical sciences".
Definition
Phy ...
,
mechanics
Mechanics (from Ancient Greek: μηχανική, ''mēkhanikḗ'', "of machines") is the area of mathematics and physics concerned with the relationships between force, matter, and motion among physical objects. Forces applied to object ...
,
machinery, and civil engineering. When Eads became successful later in life and Williams suffered hardship, Eads reciprocated Williams' generosity by providing money for Williams' comfort in his old age.
Family
![Martha Dillon Eads, 1821 - 1852](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Martha_Dillon_Eads%2C_1821_-_1852._%28First_wife_of_James_B._Eads%29.jpg)
Around 1842, Eads fell in love with Martha Dillon, a woman related to him by marriage. Martha's father was Patrick Dillon, a prominent St. Louis businessman. Patrick did not approve of the couple, as he wanted Martha to marry someone with money and influence. In October 1845, James and Martha wed without her father's consent.
Martha moved in with Eads' parents in LeClaire, Iowa while Eads stayed behind in St. Louis to set up a glass works. Although their living arrangement was supposed to be temporary, the failure of his glass business made it permanent. Eads had many debts to pay off from the failed business and he went back to working in salvage.
Martha died in October 1852 of cholera. She did not live to see Eads become successful. Five years after her death, when Eads retired from working on the river, he had amassed a fortune of $500,000.
Nine years after Martha's death, in 1861, Eads remarried.
Fortune
When he was twenty-two, Eads designed a salvage boat and showed the drawings to two shipbuilders, Calvin Case and William Nelson. Although Eads had no previous experience and no capital for the project, Case and Nelson were impressed with him and the three became partners.
At that time, salvaging wrecks from the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...
was nearly impossible because of strong currents.
Eads made his initial fortune in
salvage by creating a
diving bell
A diving bell is a rigid chamber used to transport divers from the surface to depth and back in open water, usually for the purpose of performing underwater work. The most common types are the open-bottomed wet bell and the closed bell, which c ...
, using a wine barrel to retrieve goods sunk in
riverboat
A riverboat is a watercraft designed for inland navigation on lakes, rivers, and artificial waterways. They are generally equipped and outfitted as work boats in one of the carrying trades, for freight or people transport, including luxury un ...
disasters.
He also devised special boats for raising the remains of sunken ships from the river bed. Eads did much of the diving himself because the work was so dangerous. His work gave Eads an intimate knowledge of the river, as he explored its depths from the Gulf of Mexico to Iowa.
Because of his detailed knowledge of the Mississippi (the equal of any professional river pilot), his exceptional ability at navigating the most treacherous parts of the river system, and his personal fleet of snag-boats and salvage craft, he was afforded the much prized
courtesy title of "Captain" by the rivermen of the Mississippi and was addressed as Captain Eads throughout his life.
Civil War
In 1861, after the outbreak of the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
, Eads was called to Washington at the prompting of his friend, Attorney General
Edward Bates
Edward Bates (September 4, 1793 – March 25, 1869) was a lawyer and politician. He represented Missouri in the US House of Representatives and served as the U.S. Attorney General under President Abraham Lincoln. A member of the influential ...
, to consult on the defense of the Mississippi River. Soon afterward, he was contracted to construct the
City-class ironclad
The Pook Turtles, or City-class gunboats to use their semi-official name, were war vessels intended for service on the Mississippi River during the American Civil War. They were also sometimes referred to as "Eads gunboats." The labels are ap ...
s for the
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
, and produced seven such ships within five months: ''
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
'', ''
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
'', ''
Carondelet'', , ''
Louisville
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border.
...
'', ''
Mound City'', and ''
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...
''. He also converted the river steamer ''New Era'' into the ironclad ''
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...
''. The river ironclads were a vital element in the highly successful Federal offensive into Tennessee, Kentucky and upper Mississippi (February–June, 1862). Eads corresponded frequently with Navy officers of the Western Flotilla, and used their "combat lessons learned" to improve vessels during post-combat repairs, and incorporate improvements into succeeding generations of gunboats. By the end of the war he would build more than 30 river ironclads.
The last were so hardy that the Navy sent them into service in the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...
, where they supported the successful Federal attack on the Confederate port city of Mobile. All senior officers in the Western Theater, including Grant and Sherman, agreed that Eads and his vessels had been vital to early victory in the West. The first four gunboats were built at the Eads' Union Marine Works in
Carondelet, Missouri. The next three were built under Eads' contract at the Mound City (Illinois) Marine Railway and Shipyard. Eads' vessels were the first United States ironclads to enter combat. On January 11, 1862 the Eads-built ironclads ''
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
'' and ''
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...
'' fought the Confederate gunboats ''
CSS General Polk'', ''
CSS Ivy'', and ''
CSS Jackson
CSS ''Jackson'' was a gunboat of the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War.
Built at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1849 as ''Yankee'', the fast side-wheel river tug was purchased at New Orleans on 9 May 1861 by Capt. L. Rousseau, CSN, then stren ...
'' at Lucas Bend, on the Mississippi River. Subsequently, on February 6, 1862, Eads' ironclads captured
Fort Henry on the
Tennessee River
The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other name ...
.
This was over a month before the combat actions of the ironclads ''
CSS Virginia
CSS ''Virginia'' was the first steam-powered ironclad warship built by the Confederate States Navy during the first year of the American Civil War; she was constructed as a casemate ironclad using the razéed (cut down) original lower hull ...
'' and ''
USS Monitor'' during the March 8–9, 1862
Battle of Hampton Roads.
During the war, Eads wrote a check to the War Department for $1,000 to help homeless Confederates and Union sympathizers. After the war, he held a fair to raise money for the thousands of homeless refugees in St. Louis.
Mississippi River bridge
![Eads Bridge panorama 20090119](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Eads_Bridge_panorama_20090119.jpg)
Eads designed and built the first road and rail bridge to cross the Mississippi River at
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
. The
Eads Bridge
The Eads Bridge is a combined road and railway bridge over the Mississippi River connecting the cities of St. Louis, Missouri and East St. Louis, Illinois. It is located on the St. Louis riverfront between Laclede's Landing, to the north, and ...
, constructed from 1867 through 1874, was the first bridge of a significant size with steel as its primary material, and it was the longest
arch bridge
An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either side. A viaduct ...
in the world when completed. Eads was the first bridge builder to employ the
cantilever
A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cant ...
method, which allowed
steam boat traffic to continue using the river during construction. The bridge is still in use today, carrying both automobile and
light rail traffic over the river.
Mississippi River designs
The Mississippi in the 100-mile-plus stretch between the port of
, Louisiana and the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...
frequently suffered from silting up of its outlets, stranding ships or making parts of the river unnavigable for a period of time. Eads solved the problem with a wooden
jetty
A jetty is a structure that projects from land out into water. A jetty may serve as a breakwater, as a walkway, or both; or, in pairs, as a means of constricting a channel. The term derives from the French word ', "thrown", signifying some ...
system that narrowed the main outlet of the river, causing the river to speed up and cut its channel deeper, allowing year-round navigation. Eads offered to build the jetties first, and charge the government later. If he was successful, and the jetties caused the river to cut a channel 30 feet deep for 20 years, the government agreed to pay him $8 million. Eads was successful. The jetty system was installed in 1876 and the channel was cleared in February 1877.
Journalist
Joseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer ( ; born Pulitzer József, ; April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911) was a Hungarian-American politician and newspaper publisher of the '' St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' and the ''New York World''. He became a leading national figure in ...
, who had known Eads for five years, invested $20,000 in this project. A flood in 1890 brought calls for a similar system for the entire Mississippi Valley. A jetty system would prevent the floods by deepening the main channel. However, there were concerns about the ability of water moving through a jetty system to cut out the rock and clay on the river bottom. The development of navigable channels at the mouth of the Mississippi River made Eads famous.
In 1982, the
American Society of Civil Engineers
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
designated the south pass jetties as a
National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark
__NOTOC__
The following is a list of Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks as designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers since it began the program in 1964. The designation is granted to projects, structures, and sites in the United State ...
.
Other work
Eads designed a gigantic railway system intended for construction at the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec
The Isthmus of Tehuantepec () is an isthmus in Mexico. It represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Before the opening of the Panama Canal, it was a major overland transport route known simply as the T ...
, which would carry ocean-going ships across the isthmus from the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...
to the Pacific Ocean; this attracted some interest but was never constructed.
In 1884 he became the first U.S. citizen awarded the
Albert Medal of the Royal Society of the Arts.
Later life and death
Although he came from a humble background, Eads' accomplishments throughout his life earned him wealth and renown. He was so revered that Scientific American proposed that he run for president of the United States.
Eads died while on vacation in
Nassau, Bahamas, aged 66. Eads and his second wife, Eunice, had moved to New York four years before his death. However, his funeral took place in St. Louis and he was buried in
Bellefontaine Cemetery
Bellefontaine Cemetery is a nonprofit, non-denominational cemetery and arboretum in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1849 as a rural cemetery, Bellefontaine is home to a number of architecturally significant monuments and mausoleums such as t ...
in
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
in the family vault.
Legacy
The towns of
Eads, Tennessee
Eads is an unincorporated community in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, named after Civil War engineer James Buchanan Eads. Some parts of Eads (and some surrounding areas) have been annexed by the city of Memphis. Some of its area is curren ...
;
Eads, Colorado
Eads is the Statutory Town that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Kiowa County, Colorado, United States. The town population was 672 at the 2020 United States Census.
History
Eads has been the seat of Kiowa County sinc ...
; and
Port Eads, Louisiana are named for him.
U.S. Route 50 through Lawrenceburg, his hometown, is called Eads Parkway in his honor.
Eads Street is a street running parallel to U.S. Route 1 Jefferson Davis Highway in Crystal City, Arlington Virginia.
In 1920, Eads was added to the
Hall of Fame for Great Americans
The Hall of Fame for Great Americans is an outdoor sculpture gallery located on the grounds of Bronx Community College (BCC) in the Bronx, New York City. It is the first such hall of fame in the United States. Built in 1901 as part of the U ...
colonnade, located on the grounds of the
Bronx Community College in New York.
Eads is memorialized at Washington University in St. Louis by James B. Eads Hall, a 19th-century building long associated with science and technology. Eads Hall was the site of Professor Arthur Holly Compton's Nobel Prize–winning experiments in electromagnetic radiation. Today Eads Hall continues to serve Washington University as the site of a number of facilities including the Arts and Sciences Computing Center. Eads Hall was the gift of Captain Eads's daughter Mrs. James Finney How.
Each year the Academy of Science of St. Louis awards the James B. Eads Award recognizing a distinguished individual for outstanding achievement in science and technology.
Eads is recognized with a star on the
St. Louis Walk of Fame
The St. Louis Walk of Fame honors notable people from St. Louis, Missouri, who made contributions to the culture of the United States. All inductees were either born in the Greater St. Louis area or spent their formative or creative years ther ...
.
In 1927, the deans of America's engineering colleges vote Eads one of the top five engineers of all time, an accolade he shared with
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
,
James Watt,
Ferdinand de Lesseps
Ferdinand Marie, Comte de Lesseps (; 19 November 1805 – 7 December 1894) was a French diplomat and later developer of the Suez Canal, which in 1869 joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas, substantially reducing sailing distances and times ...
, and
Thomas A. Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...
.
Eads' great Mississippi River Bridge at St. Louis was designated a National Historic Landmark by the Department of the Interior in 1964 and on October 21, 1974 was listed as a
National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark
__NOTOC__
The following is a list of Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks as designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers since it began the program in 1964. The designation is granted to projects, structures, and sites in the United State ...
by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It was also awarded a Special Award of Recognition by the American Institute of Steel Construction in 1974 on the 100th anniversary of its entry into service.
Notes
References
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*
*
*
External links
*
*
PBS – Secrets of a Master Builder*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20130705122542/https://www.createspace.com/351587 Building the City Class Ironclads Documentary*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eads, James Buchanan
1820 births
1887 deaths
American civil engineers
American Civil War industrialists
19th-century American inventors
American bridge engineers
Burials at Bellefontaine Cemetery
American marine engineers
People from Lawrenceburg, Indiana
People from St. Louis
People of Missouri in the American Civil War
Structural engineers
Hall of Fame for Great Americans inductees
Engineers from Missouri