Howard Adams Carson (1842–1931) was an American civil engineer and pioneer of tunnel construction.obit in ''

Boston Herald The ''Boston Herald'' is an American daily newspaper whose primary market is Boston, Massachusetts, and its surrounding area. It was founded in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States. It has been awarded eight Puli ...

'', Tuesday October 27, 1931 Carson received his B.S. from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1869. He was an assistant engineer at the

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

water works from 1871 to 1877. He then became an engineer for Boston's metropolitan engineering department. He was appointed as the chief engineer for Boston's new sewage and drainage system, which he designed in 1887. When the Boston Transit Commission was created in 1894, he was appointed as the Commission's Chief Engineer. Carson is most famous as the chief engineer for the

Tremont Street subway The Tremont Street subway in Boston's MBTA subway system is the oldest subway tunnel in North America and the third oldest still in use worldwide to exclusively use electric traction (after the City and South London Railway in 1890, and the Bu ...

, which was begun in March 1895 and completed in September 1897. He was also the chief engineer of the

East Boston East Boston, nicknamed Eastie, is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts annexed by the city of Boston in 1637. Neighboring communities include Winthrop, Revere, and Chelsea. It is separated from the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown and dow ...

and Washington Street subways. In 1909 he resigned from the Boston Transit Commission and then served as a consultant for several engineering projects, including the construction of the

New York subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...

and a two-track railway tunnel under the

Detroit River The Detroit River flows west and south for from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively referred to as Det ...

. He wrote the article ''Tunnel'' for the 11th edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Carson served as president of the Alumni Association of Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1884 to 1887. In 1906 he was awarded the honorary degree of A.M. by Harvard University. In 1870 he married Nancy Wilmarth (1845–1913) of Boston.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Carson, Howard Adams 1842 births 1931 deaths Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni American civil engineers 19th-century American engineers 20th-century American engineers