Northern Pacific Railway - Chief Engineers

Chief Engineers

• Edwin Ferry Johnson (1803–1872), Engineer-in-Chief, 1867. Wrote The Railroad To the Pacific, Northern Route, Its General Characteristics, Relative Merits, Etc. in 1854.

• William Milnor Roberts (1810–1881), Engineer-in-Chief, 1869 to 1879. Proposed the general route of the Northern Pacific from Bismarck to Portland. Also, Vice President, American Society of Civil Engineers, 1873 to 1878, and then President, 1878.

• Adna Anderson (1827–1889), Engineer-in-Chief, February 18, 1880, to January 1888. In October 1886, he was also named second vice-president of the Northern Pacific. He completed the line between Saint Paul, Minnesota, and Wallula (where it connected with the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company’s line to Portland), witnessing the driving of the last spike on September 8, 1883. Thereafter, he evaluated possible routes for the Cascade Division, intended to connect the NP at some point near the mouth of the Snake River with Tacoma, Washington on Puget Sound. Preliminary reconnaissance and surveys began in March 1880, and in autumn, 1883, Anderson concluded that the line should be built through Stampede Pass.

• John William Kendrick (1853–1924), Chief Engineer, January 1888, to July 1893. From July 1893, to February 1, 1899, he was general manager of the reorganized Northern Pacific Railway.

• Edwin Harrison McHenry (1859 – August 21, 1931), Chief Engineer, July 1893, to September 1, 1901. Subsequently he was chief engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway and then fourth vice-president of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.

• William Lafayette Darling (1856–1938), Chief Engineer, September 1, 1901, to September 1903, and January 1906, to 1916. Between 1905–1906, he was chief engineer for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, returning to the NP in 1906 as chief engineer and also vice-president and engineer in charge of construction of the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway.

• Edward J. Pearson (1863–1928), Chief Engineer, September 1903, to December 1905.

• Howard Eveleth Stevens, Chief Engineer, 1916 to 1928.

• Bernard Blum, Chief Engineer, 1928 to March 1953.

• Harold Robert Peterson (1896–1963), Chief Engineer, March 1953, to May 1962.

• Douglas Harlow Shoemaker, Chief Engineer, May 1962, to March 2, 1970.