Albert Fink
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Albert Fink (October 27, 1827 – April 3, 1897) was a German-born
civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...
who worked in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. He is best known for his
railroad bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
designs, which helped revolutionize the use of iron for American railroad bridge construction. He devised the Fink
truss A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembl ...
and many
truss bridge 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 ...
s, especially the
Fink-Type Truss Bridge The Fink-Type Truss Bridge, also known as the Hamden Bridge, carried Hamden Road/River Road over the South Branch Raritan River, the border between Clinton Township and Franklin Township, at Hamden near the Allerton section of Hunterdon County ...
.


Biography

Born in
Lauterbach, Hesse Lauterbach () is a town in the Vogelsbergkreis district of the federal state of Hesse in central Germany. In 1983, the town hosted the 23rd ''Hessentag'' state festival. History Lauterbach was founded between 400 and 800 AD. In 812 the town was m ...
, Germany, he studied architecture and engineering at the polytechnic school in Darmstadt, and graduated in 1848. He participated in the
Revolution of 1848 The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europea ...
in Frankfurt.Kelly, John and William J. Hausman
"Albert Fink."
In ''Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present'', vol. 2, edited by William J. Hausman. German Historical Institute. Last modified March 19, 2014.
In 1849, he emigrated to the United States. He found work with the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...
as a draftsman, and became chief office assistant to Benjamin H. Latrobe. In this position he oversaw the design and construction of buildings and bridges. With the construction of the road between
Cumberland, Maryland Cumberland is a U.S. city in and the county seat of Allegany County, Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its s ...
and
Wheeling, West Virginia Wheeling is a city in the U.S. state of West Virginia. Located almost entirely in Ohio County, of which it is the county seat, it lies along the Ohio River in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and also contains a tiny portion extending ...
(then in the state of
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
). Fink supervised much of the design, and oversaw the building of some of the first iron bridges in the nation, including that over the
Monongahela River The Monongahela River ( , )—often referred to locally as the Mon ()—is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 river on the Allegheny Plateau in North Cen ...
in
Fairmont, West Virginia Fairmont is a city in and county seat of Marion County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 18,313 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Fairmont Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Marion County, a ...
. It was this bridge that first implemented his design of the
Fink truss The Fink truss is a commonly used truss in residential homes and bridge architecture. It originated as a bridge truss although its current use in bridges is rare. History The Fink Truss Bridge was patented by Albert Fink in 1854. Albert Fink des ...
, and was in fact in its time the longest
iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...
railroad bridge. With the completion of this portion of road, the section between Grafton and
Parkersburg, West Virginia Parkersburg is a city in and the county seat of Wood County, West Virginia, Wood County, West Virginia. Located at the confluence of the Ohio River, Ohio and Little Kanawha River, Little Kanawha rivers, it is the state's fourth-largest city and ...
was commenced, and many of the bridges and tunnels of this route were also supervised by him. He was also during this time a consulting engineer of the Norfolk and Petersburg railway, which was at the time building the bridge at
Norfolk, Virginia Norfolk ( ) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Incorporated in 1705, it had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Be ...
. He left the Baltimore and Ohio railroad in 1857 to become the assistant of George McLeod, chief engineer of the
Louisville and Nashville Railroad The Louisville and Nashville Railroad , commonly called the L&N, was a Class I railroad that operated freight and passenger services in the southeast United States. Chartered by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1850, the road grew into one of the ...
. Under them he built numerous bridges, including the Green River Bridge in Kentucky, then the longest iron bridge in the nation, a bridge in
Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...
over the Cumberland, and one over the Ohio at
Louisville, Kentucky 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 ...
, which at one mile in length was the longest truss bridge of its time. During the Civil War he served in the road and machinery department as chief engineer and superintendent. Many bridges were destroyed and roads severed during this period, and Fink led the operating force to repair damages and guard against disasters. Structural losses incurred were no less than half a million dollars in that day's monetary value. Fink meanwhile advanced quickly within the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, first becoming chief engineer. In 1865, he was appointed as general manager, and by 1870, elected vice president. The 1873 financial crises prompted him to study the cost of transportation, and subsequently published two pamphlets on the topic, officially known as "The Fink Report on Costs of Transportation." During this time he also looked for a way to ease the competition between railroad companies and rather have them cooperate. He devised a plan for the Southern Railway and Steamship Association, which would be adopted, and formed in Atlanta. He resigned as vice president and general manager in October 1875 of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad to focus on the organization and management of the Southern Railway and Steamship Association and served as its general commissioner. For two years he worked to stabilize the competitive freight rates amongst the 25 rail companies."Fink, Albert." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. He set out to travel to Germany in June 1877. Upon arriving in New York City, he was requested by Vanderbilt, Jewett, Scott, and Garrett, presidents of the four great railroad companies, to stay in the city and organize the westbound railroad traffic on their lines. He accepted the commissionership of these trunk lines, and managed the position with success. In 1878, he was made president of 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 ...
. He retired from his post in 1889, and died in Ossining, New York, United States.


Notes


References

* * Attribution *


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fink, Albert German emigrants to the United States American civil engineers German civil engineers Bridge engineers 1827 births 1897 deaths Burials at Cave Hill Cemetery People from Louisville, Kentucky People from Lauterbach, Hesse Engineers from Hesse