John Augustus Roebling (1806-1869), a Prussian engineer naturalized as an American, is known for designing suspension bridges, most notably the iconic Brooklyn Bridge in New York. After emigrating to the U.S. in 1831, he initially devoted himself to farming but soon returned to his true passion, engineering. An innovator in the use of wire ropes, Roebling constructed notable bridges and aqueducts. In 1844, he won a contract to replace a canal with wooden walls with an aqueduct over the Allegheny River, using a novel structure with steel cables. Subsequently, he designed a suspension bridge over the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh (1845) and four suspension aqueducts over the Delaware and Hudson Canal (1848). His masterpiece was the Brooklyn Bridge, begun in 1867. This suspension bridge, with a main span of 251 meters and supported by steel cables 25 cm in diameter, connected Manhattan and Brooklyn. Although Roebling died in 1869 due to an accident during the planning of the bridge, his son Washington Roebling continued the construction, completing it in 1883. The Brooklyn Bridge became a lasting architectural symbol and a testament to Roebling's genius.
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