ABSTRACT
SCHUYLER 11.05. 1848 Ithaca NY/USA 13.09. 1912 Ocean Park CA/USA James Dix Schuyler received most of his education by own study. He began in 1869 his professional career as assistant of the Kansas Pacific Railway in Western Kansas and Colorado. He continued these works for six years, serving the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, the North Pacific Coast Railroad in California, and the Stockton & Ione Railroad, of which he was chief engineer. Schuyler became chief assistant state engineer of California in 1877 and placed in charge of irrigation studies in Great Central Valley. From 1882, he was chief engineer as also the general superintendent of the Sinaloa & Durango Railroad in Mexico. Returning to California, he built a section of the sea wall on the waterfront of San Francisco, raised the Seawater Dam from 1887 to 1888, and constructed Hemet Dam, at the time the highest masonry dam in Western USA. He showed much skill and ability and therefore was prominent in his profession and enjoyed a wide and successful business as consultant, including also countries such as British Columbia, Japan, Brazil, and Hawaii. He was involved in water supply projects for Denver, Ogden UT, and Los Angeles. As one of the three consulting engineers for the Los Angeles Aqueduct, fed by Owens Rivers some 400 km distant, he was able to shorten the route by 10% resulting in considerable savings. He was also one of the commissioners for Panama Canal to judge the feasibility of Gatun Dam. Schuyler was awarded the Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize for the 1907 ASCE paper. He contributed extensively to technical journals but is known for his 1901 book on reservoirs. He was a prominent member of the American Society of Civil Engineers ASCE and known for his works in hydraulic fill dams. Anonymous (1913). James Dix Schuyler. Trans. ASCE 76: 2243-2245. Anonymous (1913). James Dix Schuyler. Engineering News 69(16): 785-788. P Anonymous (1935). Schuyler, James Dix. Dictionary of American biography 16: 473-474. Scribner’s: New York. Schuyler, J.D. (1898). The failure of the Lynx Creek masonry dam, near Prescott AZ. Engineering News 39(Jun9): 362-363. Schuyler, J.D. (1901). Reservoirs for irrigation, water-supply, and domestic water supply, 2nd ed. in 1908. Wiley: New York. Schuyler, J.D. (1907). Practice in hydraulic-fill dam construction. Trans. ASCE 57: 196-277. Schuyler, J.D. (1911). The extension of the Sweetwater Dam. Engineering News 65(Mar.30): 369-372.
