Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
For nearly four decades now, Michael P. Huerta has served in a wide range of high-ranking transportation roles. In a 2011 speech at the National Hispanic Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees Annual Training Conference, Huerta addressed not only those professional achievements but also the prejudicial treatment he sometimes encountered early on in life as a... Continue Reading →
October 3, 1906 In southwestern England, a road-rail swing bridge crossing the River Avon in Bristol -- a city, ceremonial county, and unitary authority -- first went into service. The Ashton Avenue Bridge was built as a key part of the Bristol Harbour Railway, a longtime transportation link for Bristol’s docks and wharves. Alfred John... Continue Reading →
Cipriano Andrade, whose U.S. Navy service spanned four decades, was born on September 1, 1840 in the port city of Tampico in northeastern Mexico. He eventually attended both public and private schools in Philadelphia. In addition, Andrade studied engineering at the Franklin Institute in that city. On July 1, 1861 -- less than three months... Continue Reading →
September 20, 1830 Point Lookout Light in southern Maryland was formally inaugurated. This structure, marking the mouth of the Potomac River, is located at the southernmost tip of the state’s western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. (The origins of the name “Point Lookout” can be traced to the War of 1812, when that area was... Continue Reading →
September 18, 1896 Edward Orpen Moriarty, a civil engineer who had undertaken a wide range of public works projects across the globe, died in the community of Southsea within the city and unitary authority of Portsmouth in southeastern England. He was 71. Moriarty was born on October 11, 1824, in County Kerry in southwestern Ireland.... Continue Reading →
September 12, 1906 The Newport Transporter Bridge, which crosses the River Usk in the city of Newport in southeastern Wales, was officially opened. This structure is only one of a dozen transporter bridges still in existence today -- a movable bridge that carries a segment of a roadway over a river that other types of... Continue Reading →
September 11, 2001 The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 individuals in the vicinity of the World Trade Center in the southernmost part of New York City’s borough of Manhattan; the Pentagon in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area; and – where a hijacked... Continue Reading →
September 1, 1964 The Alte Weser Lighthouse in the northwestern region of what was then West Germany (now part of the Federal Republic of Germany) first went into service. This 125-foot (38-meter)-tall red tower with white horizontal bands is offshore from the estuary mouth of the river Weser, which is within the German Bight (a... Continue Reading →
August 25, 1866 Shipbuilder and naval architect Fop Smit died in the town of Niewe Leckerland (now known as Nieuw Lekkerland) in the Netherlands. He was 88. Smit had been born on October 11, 1777, in the Dutch town and municipality of Alblassderdam. His father Jan Foppe Smith (1742-1807) and uncle Jacques Foppe Smit (1756-1820)... Continue Reading →
August 22, 1889 A screw-pile superstructure that had been built at the Baltimore-based Lazaretto Depot, a supplies facility for lighthouses and lightvessels, began an overnight journey to the site in Virginia where that superstructure would be installed as the major part of a new lighthouse. The specific destination was at the mouth of the Great... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 