Manuscripts Collection
Adolph Frederick Meyer was born February 28, 1880 on a farm near Mequon, Wisconsin. He graduated from Oshkosh Normal School (Oshkosh, Wis.) and taught school from 1898 to 1901. He earned civil engineering degrees from the University of Wisconsin in 1905 and in 1909.
Meyer established his practice as a consulting engineer with the opening of an office in St. Paul in 1912. A few years later he and Francis C. Shenehon formed a joint practice in Minneapolis as Shenehon and Meyer, Consulting and Designing Engineers (1918-1923). After this, Meyer practiced alone for many years as Adolph F. Meyer, Consulting Hydraulic Engineer, with his office in Minneapolis. By the 1950s he had taken Douglas W. Barr as an associate. Meyer died on July 29, 1962. Barr carried on the practice, which eventually became Barr Engineering Company.
Meyer was an Associate Professor of Hydraulic Engineering at the University of Minnesota (1914-1917). He was an inventor of paper mill machinery, which was manufactured by his Meyer Governor Company. In the 1930s Meyer participated in Associated Consulting Engineers (Minneapolis), specializing in hydrology, water supply, flood control, drainage, and sewage disposal. He was a life member of both the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
The collection consists almost entirely of alphabetically-ordered project files related to Meyer's work as a consulting hydraulic engineer on projects for railroad companies, a Minnesota paper manufacturer, mining companies, state and local governments, Nebraska power and reclamation districts, a shopping center developer, homeowners, and a variety of other parties. The files contain correspondence and memoranda; notes and calculations; tables, graphs, and profiles; project reports; engineering and other maps; mechanical drawings; snapshot photographs; newspaper and magazine clippings; and large quantities of hydrological, meteorological, and other technical data.
The papers include information about the design and construction of sewer systems, hydroelectric and irrigation projects, drainage ditches, and dams and reservoirs. There is material related to floods, erosion, and washouts, including information about a spectacular 1938 wreck of the Milwaukee Road's Olympian passenger train at Custer Creek (Mont.), following a flash flood. There are files related to the construction of locks and dams on the Mississippi River (1930s); the regulation of water and the generation of hydroelectric power in the Rainy River area of northern Minnesota (1910s-1950s); and irrigation and hydroelectric projects in Nebraska. There is information about Meyer's work on a railroad relocation project at Texarkana (Tex.); on projects related to mining operations near Gilbert and Aurora (Minn.); and in connection with the construction of Southdale Center, a large shopping mall at Edina (Minn.). There is material related to an evaporation study sponsored by the Minnesota Resources Commission, in which Meyer was involved as project director.
There are a few files related to professional organizations, including the American Geophysical Union, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Engineers' Club of Minneapolis, the Minnesota Federation of Architectural and Engineering Societies, and the Minnesota Surveyors' and Engineers' Society.
Information about the Meyer Governor Company, which manufactured his paper mill machinery inventions (including gage protectors, teldicators, speed and load regulators, differential pressure valves and gages, and the Meyer Governor) includes product information, advertising proofs, and product drawings.
Correspondents and organizations represented in the collection include several railroad companies; officials of the Loup River Public Power District (Columbus, Neb.), the Nebraska Mid-State Reclamation District (Grand Island, Neb.), the Minnesota and Ontario Paper Company, the Minnesota Department of Conservation's Division of Waters, the Minnesota Resources Commission, Pickands Mather & Company, and the Erie Mining Company; and Douglas W. Barr.
The papers are arranged in a single alphabetical file sequence.
Several reports and other publications authored by Meyer are in the Minnesota Historical Society book collection.
Minnesota. Resources Commission. Water Evaporation Study files are in the Minnesota State Archives.
Accession number: 14,373
Processed by: David B. Peterson, July 1992
Catalog ID number: 09-00036771
Catalog ID number: 001728731
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad.
Water in basements.
Winona, Minnesota?
Regarding dams.
A study in evaporation, proposed as a WPA project by the Water Resources Committee of the Minnesota Resources Commission. AFM served as project director.
Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory, U.S. Forest Service; Southeastern Forest Experiment Station.
Alphabetical by state.
Also includes Mahoning Weather Station, Hibbing, Minnesota
Alphabetically ordered by city.
Erie Rock Lake Station and Allen Junction.
Minnesota Conservation Dept. official.
Luther W. Youngdahl, governor of Minnesota.
Report to GN.
Williston, North Dakota
Regarding flooding.
Master's thesis, State University of Iowa.
Consulting engineer, Voorheesville, New York
Consulting engineer, St. Louis, Missouri.
Duluth attorney.
Photos taken in/near Cottage Grove Township, along railroad right-of-way.
Loup River Public Power District (Columbus, Nebraska); Middle Loup Public Power and Irrigation District; North Loup River Public Power and Irrigation District.
Chief Hydraulic Engineer.
Field engineer.
USGS.
Douglas W. Barr.
USGS.
USGS.
General manager.
Attorneys.
Including Calamus River.
Chief accountant, LRPPD.
General manager, LRPPD.
Dischner and Wagner lawsuits.
Irrigation and hydroelectric project sponsored by Nebraska Mid-State Reclamation District, Grand Island, Nebraska
Black & Veatch, consulting engineers.
Nebraska Mid-State Reclamation District.
Utility analysts and engineers.
Nebraska Mid-State Public Power and Irrigation District.
Hydraulic engineer.
Including Fort Frances Pulp & Paper Co.
Including Ontario-Minnesota Pulp & Paper Co., Ltd., Fort Frances, Ontario.
Including Lake Elysian.
Paul C. S. Chao, civil engineer.
To Board of Directors, Minnesota Valley Drainage and Flood Control District.
Includes information about psychrometers.
Includes Noxon Rapids Hydroelectric Development, Clark Fork River, Sanders County, Montana.
Process invented and patented by Adolph F. Meyer.
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Includes Meyer patent application.
Brookland Hills residential development.
AFM served as a consultant for St. Louis Southwestern Railway Lines (Cotton Belt) in a controversy with the Army Corps of Engineers.
St. Louis Southwestern Railway.
Probably either used by AFM as a professor or created by him as a student.
A residential development with water in the basements of new homes.
Paper prepared for American Geophysical Union.
American Meteorological Society.
USDA, Iowa City, Iowa.
Soil Conservation Service, Pomona, California.