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100:. In 1883 he was employed by the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway Company. He took up the specialty field of bridge engineering. Scherzer in 1885 was employed as the assistant to the chief engineer of the Keystone Bridge Company of Chicago. He was there for eight years. Scherzer entered into business for himself in 1893 in Chicago as a consulting and contracting engineer.
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the stream. Each arm consisted of three trusses that carried two roadways, each 18 feet wide, and two sidewalks, each eight feet wide. The bridge was operated by two 50-horsepower electric motors on each side of the river. The total construction cost was $ 169,700. The bridge's construction was patented by
William Scherzer of Chicago.
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The first rolling lift bridge was the Van Buren Street bridge, located over the
Chicago River, Chicago, IL, and was opened to traffic on February 4, 1895. It consisted of two arms meeting at the center of the river, which when open provided a clear channel 82 feet in width, measured along the line of
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William
Scherzer the inventor and patentee of what is acknowledged to be one of the most useful mechanisms of the generation. invention has been of great benefit in the advancement of commerce and civilization. has facilitated and made possible the opening and development
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called the
Scherzer rolling lift bridge. His last engineering work before he died, done in 1893, was the design of two of these rolling lift bridges in Chicago. His design pivots the bridge like a rocking horse. The friction is lowered because it is rolling friction. Moreover when the bridge is open
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Scherzer received his primary education in public schools. He exhibited talent in art and mathematics, where his father had exhibited talent in music and art. After elementary school
Scherzer entered the private schooling of Professor Eggers at the age of 15 for college prep courses. He later then
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the channel is completely free as the mechanism has rolled away the bridge from the edge leaving the passage free for wide traffic. The first rolling lift bridge ever built was the 1895-opened Van Buren Street Bridge (long since replaced by a
140:– Because of Scherzer's early demise, his brother took over the Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge Company and derived fourteen additional related patents pertaining to rolling lift bridges and built 175 of these type bridges nationwide by 1916.
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The timing of
Scherzer's unique design could not have been better. Railroads were being built with bridges needed to cross rivers in dense urban sites. His patented method made it possible for a bridge to accommodate a change of grade.
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when he was eighteen years old. There he was at the top of his class. Scherzer was considered a competitor both in play and studies by all that knew him closely. He graduated from the Zurich engineering college in 1880.
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the peculiar problem which had to be met by the
Metropolitan Elevated in crossing the Chicago River that led to the design of the Scherzer rolling lift bridge, and this was the first one of the kind constructed.
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156:. Scherzer died from the fever on July 20, 1893, at the age of thirty-five in Chicago. His father, William Scherzer Senior, died at the age of forty-one.
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WILLIAM SCHERZER, C.E., the inventor and patentee of the
Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridges, was born at Peru, La Salle County, Illinois, on January 27, 1858.
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of a non-rolling bascule type) in the city of
Chicago and was patented by Scherzer. The second rolling lift bridge constructed spanned the
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Scherzer returned to
America in 1880 and took the position of engineer for three years at the Matthiessen & Hegeler Zinc Company at
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between Jackson and Van Buren Streets. These bridge projects were for the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad Company.
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A single-leaf rolling lift bridge example over the entrance to Surrey Water beside the River Thames in London, England
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Scherzer's parents were William and Wilhelmina Scherzer, who immigrated from Germany in 1847. Scherzer was born in
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of the great rivers, canals and waterways throughout the world for the passage of the largest vessels of commerce.
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239:"William Scherzer, American Engineer & the Scherzer Rolling Lift Bascule Span"
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489:"Scherzer rolling lift bridges" book from the library of Harvard University
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A Biographical History, with Portraits, of Prominent Men of the Great West
313:"Historical Review of Chicago & Cook County and Selected Biography"
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took up civil engineering at the Polytechnicum college in
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Engineering Record, Building Record and Sanitary Engineer
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361:. Western biographical and engraving Company. p.
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Journal of the Association of Engineering Societies
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103:Scherzer was the inventor of a refinement of the
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534:Deaths from typhoid fever in the United States
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484:Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge Company bridges
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123:In 1908 his contribution was recognized:
397:McBriarty, Patrick T. (1 October 2013).
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23:William Donald Scherzer, circa 1893
92:Animation of a rolling lift bridge
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374:Famous First Facts, Fifth Edition
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403:. University of Illinois Press.
72:The Jefferson Street Bridge, in
519:19th-century American engineers
514:19th-century American inventors
347:. Press Biographical Company.
311:Waterman, Arba Nelson (1908).
16:American engineer and inventor
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435:. McGraw Publishing Company.
378:. The H. W. Wilson Company.
370:Kane, Joseph Nathan (1997).
341:Biographical, Press (1900).
152:which brought an attack of
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529:People from Peru, Illinois
355:Campbell, John A. (1902).
454:Zeising, August (1894).
144:Death from typhoid fever
28:William Donald Scherzer
344:The Successful American
138:1893 Lift bridge patent
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479:at Wikimedia Commons
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475:Media related to
429:Sanitary (1899).
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244:. Entech creative
185:Biographical 1900
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509:1893 deaths
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498:Categories
160:References
38:Early life
263:Kane 1997
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133:Patent
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242:(PDF)
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
