Educator, structural engineer, and mathematician Charles Alton Ellis (1876-1949) was born in 1876 in Parkman, Maine. Ellis was an expert in bridge design, co-designing the Montreal Harbor Bridge and designing the structure of the Golden Gate Bridge almost single-handedly. Ellis completed four years of mathematics and higher mechanics at Wesleyan University. Upon graduation from Wesleyan in 1900, Ellis worked at various engineering jobs, joining the staff of the American Bridge Company in 1902. It was in this position that Ellis received recognition for his calculus expertise when he calculated the stresses of the subway tubes under the Hudson River. In 1908, he joined the faculty of the University of Michigan and remained there as Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering until 1912. He spent the following two years as a designing engineer for the Dominion Bridge Company. In 1914, he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois as Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, and was promoted to Professor of Structural and Bridge Engineering the following year. He continued in this position until 1921, when he accepted a position as Vice President in charge of bridge design and construction supervision for the Strauss Engineering Corporation of Chicago. In 1922, Ellis received his C.E. degree from the University of Illinois. That same year, Joseph Strauss hired him to create a design for the Golden Gate Bridge. Eliis' job was to draw up new plans for Strauss and his team, as Strauss' own design had been rejected. In 1929, Strauss was officially selected as the bridge's chief engineer, with Leon S. Moisseiff, O.H. Amman, and Charles Derleth, Jr. as consulting engineers. Leon Moisseiff had developed a new theory of suspension bridge design, but it was Ellis' job to apply Moisseiff's theory in practice. In March 1930, under Strauss' authority, Charles Ellis began the preliminary design and estimate for the bridge, completing the overall design in four mohths. In June, Ellis' design was reviewed by the three consulting engineers. The Bridge District Board of Directors reviewed and enthusiastically accepted his design in August. Strauss, meanwhile, had turned in his Engineer's Report to the directors, and the report was not received favorably. Strauss believed that Ellis was responsible for the dissatisfaction on the part of the directors when Ellis refused to comment on the report to the directors.
In November, Ellis began computing thousands of calculations for the bridge, including suspension ropes, floor beams, and cables. He wrote the specifications for all ten bridge construction contracts, which included everything from cable wire to concrete for the anchorages. He supervised the test boring and siting, which involved the complicated process of locating firm footing on the Marin shore. Working twelve to fourteen hours per day, Ellis personally made all the computations and the entire design for the bridge. In October 1931, Strauss began pressuring Ellis to finish his work. In December 1931, Strauss ordered Ellis to go on vacation. Three days before his vacation ended, Strauss instructed Ellis that he would no longer be needed for the project. Strauss stated in his letter that the design for the bridge was "nothing unusual and did not require all the time, study, and expense which [Ellis] thought necessary for it." Ellis was replaced by Clifford Paine, a former student of his, and all mention of Ellis was removed from the bridge materials. Construction began on the bridge in early 1933, and it formally opened in 1937. On the South Tower, a plaque honoring Strauss, his assistants, consultants, district directors, and others was unveiled. Although the bridge design was almost single-handedly his own, Ellis was never properly credited for his contributions to the project, and the plaque bore no mention of his name. After Ellis ceased work on the Golden Gate Bridge project in 1931, he took up private practice as a consulting engineer in Chicago, serving as an advisor to the PWA on suspension and cantilever bridge applications for loans and grants. In September 1934, he joined the faculty of Purdue University as Professor of Structural Engineering. He remained at Purdue until his retirement in 1946. Eliis was the author of the standard textbook on framed structures, in addition to writing numerous articles on bridge design and related subjects. He was a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Concrete Institute, and the American Railway Engineering Association. In addition to his professional memberships, he was a member of the Sigma Xi, Tau Beta Pi, Chi Epsilon, and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternal organizations. He died on August 22, 1949, in an Evanston, Illinois hospital. In 1994, the American Society of Civil Engineers named the Golden Gate Bridge one of the "Seven Wonders of the Modern World."
From the description of The Charles A. Ellis Papers, 1911-1946 (inclusive), 1928-1938 (bulk). (Purdue University Library). WorldCat record id: 57767726
