Born June 12, 1806

Mühlhausen, Germany

Died July 22, 1869

Brooklyn, New York

Engineer and bridge designer whose most famous work is New York City's Brooklyn Bridge

John Augustus Roebling. Getty Images.

"As a great work of art and as a successful specimen of advanced bridge engineering, [the Brooklyn Bridge] will forever testify to the energy, enterprise, and wealth of that community…."

Carving a European-style country out of the North American continent in the nineteenth century was a mammoth undertaking. A key element was building transportation routes across the wild, uncharted territory. Bridges were a vital, if often overlooked, element in both water and surface transportation. John Augustus Roebling, an immigrant from Germany, made two major contributions to the developing nation's transportation: He developed steel ropes, or cables, and he developed the nation's first suspension bridges, which could span longer distances than could bridges made with...