Los Angeles County

Biographies

 

 

 

HARRY HAWGOOD

 

 

     HAWGOOD, HARRY, Civil and Hydraulic Engineer, Los Angeles, California, is a native of the British Empire, being born in Derbyshire, England, on April 28, 1853.    He is the son of William Haywood and Sarah A. (Pike) Hawgood.  He married Harriet E. McWain of Vermont in 1887 in Oregon.

     Mr. Hawgood received his education in the schools of England.  He attended the City of London School, one of the oldest institutions of its nature in the British Empire, having been founded in 1442; it is closely identified with the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. While attending this school he was a fellow student of the man who is today at the head of British polities, Premier Asquith.  Later he studied civil and mechanical engineering on municipal water works, and afterward in one of the largest shipbuilding yards on the River Thames.

     Shortly after finishing his studies in England he received in 1874 an appointment which carried him into South Africa, where he was engaged in designing structures for the Cape of Good Hope government railways, serving under a five years’ contract.  He became Assistant Resident Engineer in the Maintenance Department of the government railways in that region, where he fulfilled his contract to the day.  He returned to England in 1879, and received commendatory letters from the British Government officials, and in 1880 came to American and located at Madison, Wisconsin.  Shortly afterward he was made Assistant Engineer of Construction on the Madison and Milwaukee line of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway and his rise in the engineering world was rapid.

     In 1881 he was made Locating Engineer, reconnoitering for extensions of the Utah Northern Railway, now the Oregon Short Line, in Idaho and Montana.  He continued in this capacity for two years and laid out and constructed some of the most difficult pieces of railway construction known in that region.

     In 1884 he was Resident Engineer in charge of construction from Le Grande to Baker City, Oregon, on the Oregon Railway and Navigation System.

     A year later he resigned to follow private practice in hydraulic and railroad engineering at Portland, Oregon.  He met with success and in a short time became Consulting Engineer for the Receiver of the Oregonian Railroad and the Chief Engineer of Construction on the Portland, Willamette Valley Railway.  He was appointed by the Governor of Oregon as one of the commissioners to determine and fix the length of the navigable draw-span on the railroad bridge across the Willamette River.  In May, 1888, after the purchase of the P. And W. V. Railway by the Southern Pacific System, Mr. Hawgood became Resident Engineer for that road and was located at Los Angeles in charge of the lines between that city and El Paso, Texas.  He continued in that position up to 1894, when he resigned to enter into practice as Consulting Engineer.

     When the San Pedro-Santa Monica Harbor controversy arose Mr. Hawgood took a prominent part in that matter, making a thorough study of the question.  In 1896 he made the engineering argument in favor of San Pedro before the Commerce Committee of the United States Senate, and later argued the same question in Los Angeles before what was known as the Walker Harbor Board, a special board appointed b the President of the United States to select the harbor site.

     He followed chiefly hydraulics and power engineering up to 1900.  At that time he accepted the position of Chief Engineer in the location and construction of the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, notable among his structures being the large concrete viaduct over the Santa Ana River near Riverside.  In 1904, his services with the railroad company being finished, he resumed practice as Consulting Engineer.

     Since located in Los Angeles, in 1888, Mr. Hawgood has been engaged as a hydraulic consulting engineer by the City of Los Angeles and other municipalities.  He has done excellent service for the Los Angeles City Water Company, the Kern River Company, the Pacific Light and Power Company and various others throughout the West.

     Mr. Hawgood has an international reputation.  He holds memberships in the following: Institution of Civil Engineers, London; American Society of Civil Engineers; American Railway Engineering Association and was formerly President of the Engineers and Architects’ Association of So. Cal.  He is a member of the Jonathan Club of Los Angeles.

 

 

Transcribed 1-2-09 Marilyn R. Pankey.

Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I,  Page 174, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.  1913.

© 2008 Marilyn R. Pankey.

 

 

 

 

 

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