Ash Fork Steel Dam - Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Ash Fork Steel Dam - Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The Ashfork Bainbridge Steel Dam, the first large steel dam in the world, and one of only three ever built in the United States, was constructed in 1898 by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (ATSF) to supply water for railway operations near Ash Fork, Arizona. It is named for the town of Ash Fork, and for Francis H. Bainbridge, a civil engineer and graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), a member of the Rensselaer Society of Engineers, and an engineer for ATSF.According to material found in this PDF: Arizona Society of Civil Engineers 150th anniversary booklet, Bainbridge invented the steel dam and obtained a United States patent on it, No. 537,520, filed September 11, 1894 The dam has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1976. Read more on Wikipedia
Source: en.wikipedia.org