60 likes | 159 Views
Claudius Crozet. By Owen For the Crozet Elementary School Architecture Club. Early Life.
E N D
Claudius Crozet By Owen For the Crozet Elementary School Architecture Club
Early Life • Claudius Crozet was born in Villefranche on December 31, 1789. He attended a special engineering school, the ÉcolePolytechnique and graduated as sub-lieutenant on October 1, 1807. Crozet studied bridge building, and graduated from the Imperial Artillery School as a second lieutenant on June 9, 1809. Crozet resigned from military duty on April 11, 1816. On June 7, 1816, in Paris, Crozet married Agathe Decamp.
Immigration to America • Late in fall of 1816, Crozet and his bride headed for the United States. Almost immediately after arriving, Crozet began work as a professor of engineering at the U.S. Military Academy. He designed several of the buildings at West Point. Thomas Jefferson referred to Claudius Crozet as "by far the best mathematician in the United States."
Claudius Crozet Tunnel • Blue Ridge Tunnel, also known as the Crozet Tunnel, was the longest of four tunnels built on the Blue Ridge Railroad to cross the Blue Ridge Mountains at Rockfish Gap. It has been named a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.
Tunnel Replacement • The Blue Ridge Railroad ceased to exist once the route across the mountains was completed, becoming a part of the Virginia Central Railroad. In 1868, the Virginia Central was merged with another state-chartered railroad, the Covington and Ohio Railroad, to create the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. • The C&O replaced it in 1944 with a larger, parallel tunnel to accommodate increased rail traffic of World War II matériel. The "new" tunnel, which was 4 feet off alignment when constructed, and is now referred to as the Blue Ridge Tunnel.