Thomas Willis Pratt, (born 1812, Boston, Massachusetts) was an American

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

. He is best known for his 1844 patent for the

Pratt truss A truss bridge is a bridge whose load-bearing superstructure is composed of a truss, a structure of connected elements, usually forming triangular units. The connected elements (typically straight) may be stressed from tension, compression, or ...

, which he designed with his father, Caleb Pratt. Pratt also surveyed the route of the

Providence and Worcester Railroad The Providence and Worcester Railroad is a Class II railroad operating of tracks in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, as well as New York via trackage rights. The company was founded in 1844 to build a railroad between Providence, ...

in 1844. He died in 1875.

References

1812 births 1875 deaths Engineers from Massachusetts People from Boston 19th-century American inventors {{US-inventor-stub