We can take away from the roebling family and company is that innovation is real. There is a dont tell us it cannot be done attitude. We can do this, we can innovate, we can make something we have thought about come to being, and by that ingenuity and engineering, we can change the way people live their lives in a positive way. John a roebling became an engineer. He studied at the Royal Academy in prussia, where he was from. He realized america had some of the most amazing structures. He was interested in bridges. Around 1847 or so, he came to the United States, planted himself in saxonburg outside of pittsburgh. He started farming. What is an engineer doing farming . Not much. The Pennsylvania Railroad was having issues developing ways to pull ships and trains over mountainous areas. They were using hemp rope, they often would break. John roebling saw a problem he gets off with engineering practice and knowhow. After taking his idea to the railroad system, they said if you come up with the idea and make it work, we will buy it from you. He set up an Engineering Lab on his own farm and came up with a way to use wire to make rope. He took steel, turned it into wire, turned that wire into rope, and transformed the world. The most famous structures in the world are associated with roebling and his company. The Brooklyn Bridge, people are familiar with that iconic bridge. The design of John Roebling, the mind of roebling is in that bridge. The Golden Gate Bridge, the great cables of the Golden Gate Bridge, John Roebling is famous for having spun the largest cables at the time and largest span for a number of years. Roebling is known for having built the very first bridge over the niagara gorge, a doubledecker bridge that could carry trains on top and people in carriages underneath on a toll road. Even the George WashingtonBridge Design is a structure built by roebling. We are looking at a photo from 1935 as roeblings bridgman begin to wrap the Golden Gate Bridge cables. This phenomenal, onceusedonly technology of having six travelers take individual pieces of wire back and forth across the water to go across and up on the towers, to meet in the middle, transfer those. You see them wrapping the cables, as they begin to get toward a later stage of the installation. It is important to know that each piece of wire, each wire rope was cut to measure before they even traveled, by roebling, by train to philadelphia, then loaded on boats, taken through the panama canal to get to california just to become part of what is the largest suspension bridge in the world. You can see workmen walking on the catwalks on the site. This was the first time they ever used nets below them. There are photos we have in our archive of gentlemen building above the cloud cover. There were times when they were higher in the sky than the clouds. When we see pictures of that beautiful orange icon that rises in the sky, we know it is because of people right here at roebling who made this deal, made the cables and put them in place. We are looking at a drawing of a unique structure, one of the most important pieces of technology in the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. These wooden structures were underneath the water and made it possible for the workers to dig down into the bedrock and sink and sink and sink those caissons down. So much of the weight of suspension bridges requires that the cables are connected to those towers, and they bear such a lot of the load. These caissons on both sides of the bridge, both inns of the bridge, he come part of the permanent structure, they were filled with cement and remain underneath the east river. They are still part of the structure. You can imagine, it is 1869, not a shovel of dirt has been turned at the site or location of the Brooklyn Bridge, but John Roebling and his eldest son are there surveying. As they are standing on the air, a ferry boat approaches and crashes into the pier. It crushes roebling foot and it ultimately becomes a mortal injury because he contracts tetanus. He did not believe in traditional medicine. He believed in water therapy. He poured water on the wound. This does not work. Tetanus is not a fun experience, nor is any illness, but it is an excruciating way to go. He suffers and passes within days, and washington roebling, his eldest son, becomes the chief engineer on the Brooklyn Bridge project. It took 13 years to finish the bridge. There was a point at which roeblings sons company was the largest employer in trenton. Ultimately, his company, the Company Owned by his sons, became one of the largest employers in the state. It is an amazing thing to think that this small family with these ideas about structures and building and engineering and metallurgy and what could be done, they changed the way business was done in trenton. When you drive through trenton, you see now buildings that still stand where the trenton works were located. You see them transformed into buildings were people are performing or buying groceries. These are buildings that have been kept and preserved for a reason. They are part of the fabric of what makes trenton trenton. When you drive across the bridge and you see from the other side the sign that says trenton makes the world, the roeblings were part of that. The roebling had made a decision to make their own steel. Roeblings son was following in his fathers footsteps and was at odds with his uncle. Charles had a hunch and he followed that. In 1904, he comes to this area, right along the delaware. Very accessible in a short time to places like philadelphia. Easily accessible space. A little further from trenton that they might have wanted because people would hear the name roebling and the acreage prices would go up. He went a little further out, dressed plainly and thought about 150 acres of land. He begins immediately hiring a force of people to come in and build. Not only the new steel mill, but the town. A uniquely build and Design Company town. It was said that charles had to have an outlet for boundless energy, and that is where the village of roebling sprang up. Looking at a map at what was here, it is hard to fathom when you now think about what you see today. You see our main gate building, which is here. We are right here, standing inside this building. When you go out into our mill yard space, you can see the old time office, which ultimately became a shoe shop. You still see off in the distance, buildings 92 and 93, where the famous and amazing piece of technology, the wire rope stretcher, remains. Other than that, you dont see all of these buildings and get the gravity of what was here. We are right here on the delaware river. We are right here along that wonderful railroad for the Pennsylvania Railroad company. We are right here up against what is on the other side. You have our industry and daily life in the village of roebling. From main street on down, everything from homes and schools to boarding houses and a general store, roebling in was the only place in town you could buy alcohol and have weddings and so forth. All of this in a privately owned town owned by the roebling family, built at the same time they were building their company. It makes it one of the most unique of about 2500 at the time, companyowned towns. It was not unusual at the time for companies to have their own towns, but they were not always great places to live. This is one of the places where, because trials and his family believed workers observed a good life and they would work harder if they lived in a place they could become people and safe, clean and have their families raised in a comfortable place, they believed they would get the best out of those workers and they were right. Roebling stands even today as a testament to that. It feels great deal like it did, when you look at the archival photos. All of the houses are still standing. For the Roebling Company, the heyday, their biggest boom would been during world war ii. There were times when there were 15,000 workers right here, coming through. They were building and making products that were needed and important to the effort of the United States and its military. There was a lot they were required to do. [no audio] that was the really big boom for the company. It was also one of the hardest times, because at the same time, unionization started to come into the town and company and infiltrate what they had laid the groundwork of this beneficial relationship between workers and the company owner. Unionization began to creep in. There were issues of needing to upgrade. If you can imagine, steel made in cold run furnaces needing to turn over to electric everywhere. And the competition for the same product. Once the product is out there, steel began to move overseas in terms of manufacturing. There were wonderful things about that heyday, but also difficulties. In 1947, as the world war is starting to wind down and business is changing, the Roebling Company makes a decision to begin selling the homes it owns here in roebling to the workers. Those who live in the houses can purchase them if they want to buy them. If not, others can purchase homes. Ultimately, that was a decision to begin the work of divesting themselves, of selling the company. Within several years, 1953, the Roebling Company sells its company to colorado fuel and iron, they take over and run it as a steel mill for another 12 years or so. In that timeframe, steel is being manufactured more and more overseas, money is tight or production is down because the war is over. How do they stay afloat . Eventually, cf i begin to sell off pieces of the business here. Whether it was the flat wire being sold to another company, or the copper mills, by 1973 and 1974, both the trenton works and the Roebling Company here in roebling, new jersey are closed down. Colorado fuel and iron goes out of his nose, shuts locations down, and a silence falls over this place that had never really been hurt before. You can imagine, it was a difficult time. Sort of a testament to the fortitude and resilience to the people who had lived and worked here for many generations at that point, they continued to go on and the town remains. When you drive through, look at the buildings, the old general store, the original bank building, the original inn, all the houses along the river. When you drive through and see yet, you feel the history, you see the history. You can imagine, especially when you put that against looking at old photos and you see what life was like, you visit the museum here and take a walk through the museum, you can see what life was like here, and you feel that even now today as you walk through the village of roebling. Our cities to her staff recently traveled to trenton, new jersey to learn more about its rich history. Learn more about trenton and other stops on our tour at www. Cspan. Org citiestour. Youre watching American History tv. All weekend, every weekend on cspan 3. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Public Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Piscataway park in maryland sits directly across the Potomac River from George Washingtons mount vernon estate. The park was saved from development. We spoke with lisa hayes about the history of the park and the native american piscataway tribal lands. Ms. Hayes we are on the banks of the potomac, as c