Lyman Dwight Wilbur

Lyman Dwight Wilbur (1900 – April 5, 2001) was an American civil engineer and construction executive whose career with Morrison–Knudsen encompassed major transportation, water-development and military-construction projects in the United States and overseas. He became a vice president of Morrison–Knudsen and simultaneously served as president of its International Engineering Company subsidiary.

Wilbur directed construction of the railroad causeway across the Great Salt Lake, developed a stabilization system during construction of San Francisco's Broadway Tunnel, and managed foundations for the bridge across the Tagus at Lisbon. During the Vietnam War, he headed the civilian joint venture responsible for a rapidly expanding United States military-construction program in South Vietnam. Engineering News-Record selected him as its first Construction Man of the Year in 1966, an honor now known as the Engineering News-Record Award of Excellence. He was the recipient of the 1973 John Fritz Medal.

Early life and education

Wilbur was born in California in 1900. He was a son of Curtis D. Wilbur, who served as chief justice of the Supreme Court of California, United States Secretary of the Navy under President Calvin Coolidge, and a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. His uncle, physician and educator Ray Lyman Wilbur, was president of Stanford University and later United States Secretary of the Interior.

Wilbur studied civil engineering at Stanford, graduating with the class of 1921. His early engineering papers document work associated with the Hetch Hetchy water system, the Exchequer Dam and power plant, the Merced Irrigation District, the Mokelumne River water-supply project, the Puget Sound Navy Yard, and proposed dams and flood-control works in California. His account of the journey, illustrated with his own photographs, appeared in the June 1932 issue of National Geographic under the title "Surveying Through Khoresm". A contemporary geographical bibliography described the article as an engineer's account of irrigation projects in the Amu Darya region.

Morrison–Knudsen career

Early assignments

In 1932, Harry Morrison hired Wilbur to work for Morrison–Knudsen in Los Angeles. The appointment began a 39-year association with the Boise-based engineering and construction company.

In 1957 and 1958, Wilbur inspected Morrison–Knudsen's work in the Helmand Valley of Afghanistan. The development included three dams, irrigation canals and a planned agricultural settlement. Wilbur and his wife, Henrietta, kept diaries during the journeys, and he photographed Afghan cities, construction works and rural life. Their diaries and photographs were later deposited at Boise State University.

The joint venture built airfields, ports, roads, hospitals, warehouses, cantonments, fuel installations and other facilities required by the rapid buildup of American forces. The work was administered by the Navy's Officer in Charge of Construction and ultimately coordinated with the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam.

Wilbur remained in charge until February 1966, when he was succeeded by Morrison–Knudsen vice president Bert Perkins.

Later career and consulting

Wilbur retired from Morrison–Knudsen in 1970. He remained in Boise and continued working as an independent engineering consultant into his eighties.

Wilbur also participated in professional discussions about a proposed sea-level canal across the Isthmus of Panama. In 1968, he was among the engineers who published a discussion of "Construction Planning for a Sea-Level Panama Canal" in the American Society of Civil Engineers' Journal of the Waterways and Harbors Division.

Honors

Wilbur was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and was recognized as an honorary member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The University of Idaho awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science degree in 1967.

His principal awards included:

Engineering News-Record Construction Man of the Year, 1966; and the ASCE Presidents' Award in 1980.

Personal life and death

Wilbur married Henrietta Shattuck, a daughter of Herbert A. Shattuck, who had worked as a publicist for Thomas Edison at Stanford University. Wilbur served on the advisory board associated with preservation of the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site in Vermont. Henrietta accompanied him on his engineering inspections in Afghanistan and recorded portions of their travels in a diary.

Archives

The Lyman D. Wilbur Papers are held by Boise State University Special Collections and Archives. The collection consists of approximately 28 linear feet in 30 boxes and includes correspondence, engineering reports, maps, notebooks, speeches, publications, photographs, financial material and records of his work for Morrison–Knudsen and as an independent consultant.

A separate digital collection contains Wilbur's color slides and diary entries from his visits to Afghanistan in 1957 and 1958.