Engineering unique investment solutions is what we do. For over two decades we have sought out the very best of breed managers and investment strategies for the clients we serve. But like James Buchanan Eads discovered, sometimes the solutions aren’t all that easy to identify and even harder to access and deploy. For James, the answer to opening the flow of commerce, across the mighty Mississippi was found deep beneath the murky waters.
Like many successful men, James Buchanan Eads, one of America’s greatest engineers,
was engaged in every aspect of his work. Years of river bottom salvaging and exploration
was called into action in the late 1800’s when James Eads brought forward a well
thought out approach to building the world’s longest bridge ever built out of steel
across
the tenuous mighty Mississippi.
The Eads Bridge, an icon of St. Louis to this day, served as the railroads’ Gateway
to the West for 100 years. But the true engineering and beauty behind the Eads
story lies beneath the muddy waters and shifting sands of the Mississippi river.
Devising a series of jetties on both banks of the river using woven mats
made of local willows, Eads was able to harness the power of nature.
By narrowing the mouth of the river, the river’s current scoured away
the sandbars that limited river traffic to smaller ships and created a
natural 30 foot deepwater channel granting larger ships access to trade
up and down the river.
Like Eads, it’s the skillful engineering, thoughtful design and
creative use of resources that makes Hammond Associates
uniquely different from all others.