DOUGLASS D.B.

DOUGLASS D.B. 21.03. 1790 Pompton NJ/USA 21.10. 1849 Geneva NY/USA David Bates Douglass graduated in 1813 from Yale University to join the US Army Corps of Engineers as second lieutenant at West Point. In 1815 he was assigned as assistant professor of natural philosophy to the Military Academy. Due to success he was quickly promoted to the chairs of mathematics and engineering, and in parallel received key outside assignments from the government. He served with surveys of the defenses of Long Island Sound, or the exploration of the Lake Superior region in 1820. Later he acted as consultant of canal and railroad corporations, so that he resigned from the Army to devote his future entirely to engineering. Douglass took interest in the Morris and Essex Canal of New Jersey, which was under construction in the 1830s. He was particularly interested in the substitution of inclined planes with mechanical lifting power for canal locks. After having directed these works, he was professor of civil engineering at the City University of New York, thereby being engaged in the water supply of New York City. Acting from 1834 to 1836 as engineer for the commissioners, Douglass selected the Croton watershed in preference to two other sources, located the route of the aqueduct, and determined all the essential features of the system, including the crossing of Harlem River on a high bridge. With later enlargements, this system continued to supply New York with water for seventy-five years. Before the actual construction of the Croton Aqueduct had been begun, Douglass was superseded as chief engineer, but his plans were essentially followed. It appeared that incompatibility had developed between him and the chairman of the Board of Commissioners. Douglass then continued in designing cemeteries, and from 1848 was a professor of mathematics at Geneva College, Geneva NY. He died the following year as a result of a paralytic strike. Anonymous (1887). Douglass, David Bates. Appletons’ cyclopaedia of American biography 2: 216-217. Appleton: New York. Anonymous (1930). Douglass, David Bates. Dictionary of American biography 5: 405-406. Scribner’s: New York. Jackman, S.W. (1964). David Bates Douglass’ journal. American Neptune 24(4): 280-293. Jackman, S.W., Freeman, J.F., eds. (1969). American voyageur: The journal of David Bates Douglass. Northern Michigan University Press: Marquette MI. https://clarke.cmich.edu/detroit/douglass1820.htm P

DOUGLASS L.R. 02.03. 1888 Gallup NM/USA 13.01. 1979 Boulder City CO/USA Louis Rea Douglass obtained the BSc degree in 1928 from the University of Colorado, Boulder CO, the civil engineering degree in 1934, and the MSc degree in 1939. He had previously attended Colorado Agricultural College, Fort Collins CO. He was from 1909 to 1917 rodman and office engineer of a firm at Trinidad CO, and until 1919 in the US Army. From 1919 to 1921 Douglass was engineer in charge of hydroelectric developments. From 1922 to 1925 he was supervising engineer for both the design and the construction of storm sewers at Trinidad CO. After having been engaged in private practice at Denver CO dealing with irrigation projects, Douglass then joined in 1933 the US Bureau of Reclamation USBR, where he was successively employed as civil engineer, chief safety engineer, assistant supervising engineer on the construction of dams, canals and other irrigation structures for water conservation, and utilization projects in the Great Plains area. He was in the mid-1940s promoted to USBR engineer assistant to the commander, and in 1950 to acting director of power for the Boulder Canyon Project. Douglass became a staff member of the USBR once the large reclamation projects were initiated in 1933. He worked on the design of Hoover Dam, and in 1937 was appointed the first safety engineer of the Bureau. In 1941 he became assistant to the supervising engineer on the construction of water conservation and utilization projects under the Wheeler-Case Program. He was appointed in 1948 consultant to the National Resources Section, Supreme Allied Powers, on land reclamation in Japan. From 1950 to 1954, as director of power, he supervised the installation of three new generating units at the Arizona wing of the Hoover Dam, one of which was the first to have a solid stainless steel turbine runner. At retirement in 1954, Douglass received the US Distinguished Service Citation and Gold Medal ‘for outstanding contributions in the field of water conservation and control’. He was member of the American Society of Civil Engineers ASCE, the Colorado Society of Engineers, and the Denver Teknik Club. Anonymous (1948). Douglass, Louis R. Who’s who in engineering 6: 529. Lewis: New York. Anonymous (1950). L.R. Douglass. Engineering News-Record 145(Sep.14): 65. P Douglass, L.R. (1916). Irrigation-ditch velocity and discharge. Engineering News 76(2): 72-73. Douglass, L.R. (1947). Davis Dam completes storage regulation of Colorado River below Boulder. Civil Engineering 17(1): 14-17. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_R._Douglass P