Hugh Lincoln Cooper

Hugh Lincoln Cooper. . , Hugh Cooper (1865-1935) was born in Sheldon, Minnesota. He built his first bridge when he was 16. The 40 foot long bridge went across a creek and stayed in service 50 years. , After he graduated from high school, Cooper became an apprentice at the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad, and it was for this firm that he began building bridges in Wisconsin. , In 1891 Cooper became interested in hydroelectric power and began building water wheels and installing power plants with a firm based in Dayton, Ohio. Soon he was traveling all over the world to install power plants. When he returned to the United States, he founded the Hugh L. Cooper Company and took on the daunting task of building a power plant on Horseshoe Rapids above Niagara Falls. Completed in 1909, he then volunteered to help a small community in Iowa tackle a problem that proved to be just as difficult. , Business leaders in Keokuk, Iowa, and Hamilton, Illinois, had joined together to form the Keokuk and Hamilton Water Power Company and were looking for a chief engineer to help them build a dam across the Mississippi. The firm had only $7,500 and five years to complete the project. Even so, Cooper was enthusiastic and sold the project to insurance interests in Toronto. With financing in place, Cooper and the K and H WP Co. were ready to go when problems struck. Ultimately, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire caused financers to back out leaving the K and H WP Co. with no money. Cooper was not discouraged. He represented the company himself in search of more money and in 1909 the management firm of Stone and Webster agree to provide financing for the project – building the longest concrete dam every constructed. , The dam needed its own railroad to transport materials. A giant cantilevered traveling crane was built so materials could be deposited just 125 feet beyond a finished section. Two years into the project, freezing January weather generated crushing ice that threatened completed work. Armed with just shovels and sandbags, workers kept the frozen river at bay. , America’s first great dam was completed in May 1913.