John Lyle Harrington

John Lyle Harrington (December 7, 1868 – May 20, 1942) was an American civil engineer and a leading expert in the field of moveable bridge design. He was a senior partner in several bridge engineering firms, President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1923-24, and Chief of the engineers' board advising the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Eventually, Harrington earned a Doctorate of Engineering from the Case School of Applied Sciences in 1930.

Career and works Early in his career, Harrington was Chief Engineer of the Locomotive and Machine Company of Montreal. In 1907 he would partner with John Alexander Low Waddell to form the bridge design firm Waddell & Harrington. Working together, they would soon obtain several patents improving on Waddell's earlier designs of the state-of-the-art vertical-lift bridge. As of 2021, one of Harrington's early bridge collaborations with Waddell, the 1910 Hawthorne Bridge in Portland, Oregon, remains the oldest operating vertical-lift bridge in the United States. The partnership came to an end in 1914 when Harrington departed along with draftsman Frank Morgan Cortelyou. They joined a new company called 'Harrington, Howard & Ash', and in 1928 the duo went on to found the long-running firm Harrington & Cortelyou.

In 1922 Harrington was elected president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for the year 1923-24. Under the Herbert Hoover presidency (1929–1933), he was a member of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

By the end of his career, Harrington was credited with having designed over 200 bridges and $100,000,000 worth of infrastructure (as of 1930).

Selected publications Harrington, John Lyle (ed.). The principal professional papers of Dr. J.A.L.Waddell, civil engineer, 1905. John Alexander Low Waddell & John Lyle Harrington. Addresses to Engineering Students. Waddell & Harrington, 1911.