| dc.description.abstract | Bernard Moore Temple, whose accomplishments have been unappreciated for the most part, deserves recognition as one of Texas' outstanding civil engineers during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Born in 1843 into a wealthy Virginia plantation family, Temple served in the Confederate artillery and was seriously wounded. After the war he moved to Kansas, where he became a civil engineer, specializing in railroad building. In 1872 he moved to Texas, eventually settling in Galveston. He studied railroad building with several outstanding civil engineers, such as Octave Chanute, Grenville Dodge, and James Converse. In Galveston he began work for the fledgling Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway Company, becoming chief engineer in 1879, and directing construction of lines from near Houston to Lampasas and Fort Worth. In 1881 the important new town of Temple in Bell County was named for him. Completing his service with the Santa Fe in 1884, he worked privately as an engineer, then from 1888 to 1892 worked for the Southern Pacific and other Texas lines owned by Collis P. Huntington. He served as construction engineer in order to link Victoria and Beeville. He became resident engineer for the High Pecos Railway Bridge, which was, at the time, the third highest in the world. In 1892 and 1893 he helped to build jetties from Galveston Island into the Gulf of Mexico to protect shipping to Galveston and Houston. From 1893 to 1895 at Galveston he was a private consultant, before becoming city engineer. He finally closed his career as superintendent of city water works, holding the position until shortly before his death in 1901. A devoted father of two children, Temple was married to Ida May Shipman, the city's first woman school principal. Temple was important for the development of transportation, especially railroad building, in nineteenth century Texas and other engineering-related achievements. He maintained high standards, building according to strict requirements--as seen even today in the excellent railroads that he helped build. His accomplishments were finally recognized in 1976, when the Texas Historical Commission placed a marker at his grave in Galveston. | |
