Los Angeles County
Biographies
JAMES DIX SCHUYLER
SCHUYLER, JAMES DIX, Consulting Hydraulic Engineer, Los Angeles, Cal., was born at Ithaca, N. Y., May 11, 1848, the son of Phillip Church Schuyler and Lucy M. (Dix) Schuyler. He married Mary Ingalls Tuliper, July 25, 1889, at San Diego, Cal.
Mr. Schuyler began his engineering career in 1869, on locating the western end of the Kansas Pacific Railway, in the days when it was necessary to fight the Indians as well as to combat the elements of nature in a wild country. Many thrilling adventures and hair-breadth escapes resulted, and in one battle he was seriously wounded.
In 1882-83 he was appointed chief engineer and general superintendent of the Sinaloa & Durango Railway in Mexico, returning to California in 1883 to avoid yellow fever. During 1884-85 he built a section of the San Francisco sea-wall as one of a firm of contractors and the engineer in charge. In 1890-91 he designed and supervised the building of the Hemet dam in Riverside County, California, the highest masonry structure in the State. During subsequent years Mr. Schuyler devoted special attention to hydraulic engineering in general, designing and building water works in many cities and towns, including Denver, Colorado; Portland, Oregon, and numerous others. In the years 1903-04-05 he was employed as the consulting engineer for the building of the great dam on Snake River at the head of the Twin Falls Canal, probably the largest irrigation system in America, and held a similar relation to the American Beet Sugar Co. in California and Colorado during a period of nine years of irrigation and water supply development. In the course of his long practice he has been called upon to act in an advisory capacity for a very large number of irrigation projects, power development projects and domestic water-supply works throughout Western American, and in the midst of his other activities he made such a specialty of the constructing of dams by the interesting and novel process of hydraulic sluicing as to have become a recognized authority among engineers the world over on that subject. One of his first works of this type was the Lake Francis Dam, built for the Bay Counties Power Company in Yuba County, California.
As consulting engineer of the Great Western Power Co. of California, he was foremost in pointing out the rare possibilities of a project which has since become the largest power development in the State. Much of his time has been engaged in planning and building extensive works for power and irrigation in Mexico, Hawaii, Japan, Brazil and throughout the Western States of America. In 1907 Mr. Schuyler was a member of a board of three consulting engineers selected to report on the plans for the Los Angeles Aqueduct, bringing water from the Owens River, a distance of some 250 miles. Changes in location of the aqueduct which were suggested by him and subsequently adopted at the recommendation of the board, resulted in a saving of some twenty-five miles of heavy construction, which would have cost several millions. This is generally regarded as the most distinguished service he has accomplished for the public, a service meeting with fullest recognition by those familiar with the facts.
He was consulting engineer to Waialua Plantation, Hawaii, on the construction of the highest dam on the islands, chiefly built by sluicing; was also consulting engineer for Territorial Government of Hawaii on Nuuanu dam, Honolulu, and for U. S. Indian Bureau on building of Zuni dam, New Mexico. He was consulting engineer for the British Columbia Electric Ry. Co. and Vancouver Power Co. on dam construction, the reclamation of swamp lands, etc.
Mr. Schuyler was appointed in January, 1909, by President Roosevelt to accompany President-elect Taft to Panama as one of seven engineers to report on canal plans, the Gatun dam, etc. The unanimous report of this board of engineers was in favor of carrying out the plan adopted by Congress for a lock-canal, but recommended a modification of the height and slopes of the Gatun dam, lowering it by twenty feet.
Mr. Schuyler is past vice president, American Society of Civil Engineers; member, Institution of Civil Engineers of London, Eng.; Technical Society of Pacific Coast, Engineers and Architects’ Assn. of So. Cal., Franklin Institute, American Geographical Society. He is author of “Reservoirs for Irrigation, Water Power and Domestic Water Supply,” a work on dams, of 600 quarto pages, published by John Wiley & Sons., 1908 (Revised and Enlarged), a standard work on this subject, being the especial authority on the use of sluicing in dam construction. Also author of numerous contributions to engineering societies, two of which won the Thos, Fitch Rowland prize in the American Society of Civil Engineers. He has written various reports for the U. S. Geological Survey, published at different times in public documents, as well as sundry reports on irrigation for the State of California. He is a charter member of the California Club of Los Angeles and a member of the Union League Club of Los Angeles. He went to California in 1873 from Colorado, and took permanent residence in Los Angeles in 1893. He is counted one of the foremost engineers in the world.
___________
Ed. Note: Mr. Schuyler died Sept., 1912.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 522,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2010 Joyce
Rugeroni.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES
BIOGRAPIES