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“Everything is on a colossal scale.”
—Scientific American, 18 March 1911
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In the decades between Reconstruction and World War I, West Pointers engaged in a number of large-scale building projects.
Once again, their engineering education served national and local needs as they rebuilt the Philadelphia waterworks and supervised
the New York park system.
Graduates of West Point also played significant roles in reshaping the city of Washington, with such major additions to the urban
landscape as the Washington Monument, the Library of Congress, and the Rock Creek Parkway.
Perhaps most epic of all, they linked the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with a canal through the Isthmus of Panama.
The Panama Canal was a huge engineering enterprise. West Pointers assumed key positions after George
Goethals (Class of 1880) became chief engineer of the project in 1907. He assembled a senior staff of other West Pointers
and sprinkled more junior officers throughout the project.
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