![]() Roebling moved his family to Trenton, New Jersey, in 1848, where he established a business manufacturing twisted wire cable for a wide variety of engineering applications. In pursuing these projects, Roebling developed a viable method of spinning the heavy wrought iron wire cables on site, as well as a simple and secure way to anchor them-both of which made the construction of long suspension bridges feasible. Roebling’s Delaware Aqueduct (1847-48) followed closely on his earlier design and is the oldest surviving suspension bridge in America. His first wire cable suspension bridge (1844-45) was a wooden aqueduct that carried Pennsylvania’s main east-west canal above and across the Allegheny River into downtown Pittsburgh. Roebling quickly found additional uses for his invention. Roebling’s invention soon was being used by the Allegheny Portage Railroad he received a patent for his “new and Improved Mode of Manufacturing Wire Ropes” in 1842. Troubled by their reliance on dangerously breakable hemp rope, in about 1839, Roebling turned his efforts toward the manufacture of strong but flexible wire rope as an alternative. Inclined planes used to haul barges along railway tracks over steep terrain. One element of that system was a series of ![]() He was soon employed to work on the extensive canal system then being built for travel across the state. Trained as an engineer at Berlin’s Royal Polytechnic Institute, Roebling emigrated to the United States in 1831, helping to settle the farming community of Saxonburg in western Pennsylvania. Roebling came to design suspension bridges through his earlier work on canals. Today, the Brooklyn Bridge is hailed as a key feature of New York’s City’s urban landscape, standing as a monument to progress and ingenuity as well as symbolizing New York’s ongoing cultural vitality. When completed in 1883, the bridge, with its massive stone towers and a main span of 1,595.5 feet between them, was by far the longest suspension bridge in the world. The Brooklyn Bridge, Roebling’s last and greatest achievement, spans New York’s East River to connect Manhattan with Brooklyn. Roebling, civil engineer and designer of bridges, was born in Mühlhausen, Prussia.
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