Encyclopedia Titanica

CHARLES G. ROEBLING, BRIDGE BUILDER., DIES

New York Times

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Engineer and Philanthropist, Head of John A. Roebling's Sons Co. Expires in Trenton at 69
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Charles Gustavus Roebling, millionaire philanthropist and engineer, who, with his brother, Washington Augustus Roebling, completed the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, which was started by their father, John A. Roebilng, died yesterday from Bright's disease at his home, 333 West State Street, Trenton, N. J. He was 69 years old and was born in Trenton.

Mr. Roebling was President of the John A. Roebling's Sons Company of Trenton and Roebling, N. J., and of the New Jersey Wire Cloth Company of Trenton, and Vice President of the John A. Roebling's Sons Company of New York. Graduated from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with the degree of civil engineer in 1871, Mr. Roebling was for a number of years mechanical engineer of John A. Roebling's Sons Company, and the achievements of the company are due in no small measure to his work. He was engineer and builder of the Oil City Suspension Bridge at Oil City, Penn.; in 1882 he was engineer of the machinery and contractor for the removal of Cleopatra's Needle from Alexandria, Egypt, to Central Park, this city, and in 1902 was the contractor and builder of cables for the Williamsburg Suspension Bridge. He assisted his brother, Washington A. Roebling, in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. Their father, who had undertaken the work, died in 1869, before the actual construction was begun.

Mr. Roebling was the father of the model town of Roebling on the Delaware, designed originally to give comfortable homes to the thousands of employes [sic] working in the wire and steel mills. Among Mr. Roebling's achievements in the industrial growth of the John A. Roebling's Sons Company are the construction and operation of seven large wire mills, the largest rod mill in the country and a smaller one for copper; an open hearth and steel plant of twelve furnaces, a billet mill, many tempering and tinning furnaces, a large cloth factory, and great mills for making flat steel wire and corset wire. He had control of 8,000 operatives.

Mr. Roebling was a member of the Legislature of New Jersey in 1903 and Presidential Elector for New Jersey in 1904. He was a member of the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain and of America, of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and of the Engineers' Club, New York.

Mr. Roebling's wife, who was a Miss Ormsby of Pittsburgh, died fifteen years ago. A son, Washington A. Roebling, Jr., was one of the victims of the Titanic. Mr. Roebling is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Richard McCall Cadwalader and Mrs. Carrol Sergeant Tyson, both of Philadelphia.

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Encyclopedia Titanica (2004) CHARLES G. ROEBLING, BRIDGE BUILDER., DIES (New York Times, Sunday 6th October 1918, ref: #3547, published 24 August 2004, generated 1st July 2024 03:59:29 AM); URL : https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/charles-g-roebling-bridge-builder-dies.html