James Buchanan Eads

James Buchanan Eads (1820-1887) was an American civil engineer and inventor, born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, who held more than fifty patents over his career. He is best known for the Eads Bridge across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, built between 1867 and 1874, the first bridge of significant size to use steel as its primary material and the longest arch bridge in the world when completed; Eads pioneered a cantilever method of construction that let river traffic continue underneath while the bridge went up. He made his first fortune in maritime salvage using diving bell technology he devised, built ironclad gunboats for the United States Navy during the Civil War, and later engineered a jetty system at the mouth of the Mississippi River that kept the channel from silting and remained navigable, work that brought him international acclaim. The Eads Bridge is a National Historic Landmark, and in 1920 Eads was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/