Francis Trenholm Crowe ( – ) was a Canadian

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 i ...

and employee of Morrison-Knudsen, who later became in 1931, the General Construction Superintendent of the

Hoover Dam The Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado, Black Canyon of the Colorado River (U.S.), Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. Constructed between 1931 and 1936, d ...

construction contract. Born in Trenholmville,

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, Crowe attended the Governor Dummer Academy, matriculating to the

University of Maine The University of Maine (UMaine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Orono, Maine, United States. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the Flagship universitie ...

where he graduated in 1905 with a degree in

civil engineering Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...

. The University's Francis Crowe Society is named in his honor. Crowe became interested in the American west during a lecture given by Frank Elwin Weymouth (1874-1941), a civil engineer with the

United States Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and operatio ...

. He signed up for a summer job before the end of the lecture. That summer job began a 20-year career with the reclamation service that would change the face of the American west. In 1924, Frank Crowe left the United States Bureau of Reclamation to join the construction firm of Morrison-Knudsen in

Boise, Idaho Boise ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Idaho, most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, there were 235,685 people residing in the city. Loca ...

. Morrison-Knudsen had recently signed a partnership with the larger

Utah Construction Company The Utah Construction Company was a construction company founded by Edmund Orson Wattis Jr., Warren L. Wattis and William. H. Wattis in 1900. History The Wattis Brothers received funding from David Eccles, Thomas Dee, Joseph Clark and Jam ...

to build dams. While working on the

Arrowrock Dam Arrowrock Dam is a concrete Arch dam, arch dam in the Western United States, western United States, on the Boise River in Southwestern Idaho, southwestern Idaho, east of Boise, Idaho, Boise. Opened in 1915, it is located on the border of Boise ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

, Crowe pioneered two practices that are crucial to the construction of large dams. The first was a pneumatic delivery system to transport concrete and the second was a system of overhead cables to allow the pneumatic concrete to be pumped at any point on the construction site. With this technique, Crowe built some of the largest dams in the American west, including the

Parker Dam Parker Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam that crosses the Colorado River downstream of Hoover Dam. Built between 1934 and 1938 by the Bureau of Reclamation, it is high, of which are below the riverbed (the deep excavation was necessary in ...

downstream from Hoover; Copper Basin and Gene Wash Dams on the Colorado Aqueduct system; and

Shasta Dam Shasta Dam (called Kennett Dam before its construction) is a concrete arch-gravity dam across the Sacramento River in Northern California in the United States. At high, it is the eighth-tallest dam in the United States. Located at the north e ...

in Northern California. All these dams were important but none approached the mythic scale or mystique of Hoover Dam. He retired in 1944 to his cattle ranch near Redding, California, where he died of a heart attack on February 26, 1946. He had a wife, Linnie, and two daughters.

Popular culture

The Hoover Dam construction project and Frank Crowe's role (portrayed by actor

Jay Benedict Jay Benedict (April 11, 1951 – April 4, 2020) was an American actor who spent most of his life and career in the United Kingdom. He was frequently cast as American characters in British films and television programmes. He was best known for hi ...

) was dramatised in an episode of the BBC's 2003

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television show, television and feature film, film, which features Drama (film and television), dramatized Historical reenactment, re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of docu ...

television miniseries ''

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World ''Seven Wonders of the Industrial World'' is a 7-part British docudrama television miniseries that originally aired from to on BBC and was later released on DVD. The programme examines seven engineering feats that occurred since the Industria ...

''. The project and Frank Crowe's role was also dramatized in The History Channel's series '' America: The Story of Us'' in episode 9 entitled Bust.

References

External links

Time: By a Damsite, June 19, 1944
American civil engineers Canadian emigrants to the United States 1882 births 1946 deaths University of Maine alumni People from Estrie Anglophone Quebec people The Governor's Academy alumni {{US-engineer-stub Hoover Dam

Popular culture

Further reading

References

External links