His Latest Feat: A 24-Mile Bridge

Wayne F. Palmer '17 can add another engineering feat to his list of famous constructions - the Lake Pontchartrain Bridge in Louisiana. Since 1940 he has been president of the consulting engineering firm, Palmer and Baker, Inc., of Mobile, Ala., which did all the engineering services for this 24-mile-long bridge, the longest in the world, across Lake Pontchartrain adjacent to the City of New Orleans.

The longest bridge in the world to date will save drivers approximately 40 minutes and 29 miles between New Orleans and Mandeville and was designed for 70-milesper-hour speed. The 46-million-dollar causeway is part of the New Orleans Greater Expressway System. The spectacular bridge was described by Engineering News-Record in its August 30 issue as a bold venture which "will mark the end of a 100-year-old dream of bridging wind-swept Lake Pontchartrain. It also is a tribute to those who conceived, designed and constructed it. For theirs was a bold venture, requiring unusual foresight, ingenuity and resourcefulness."

Wayne Palmer is also famous in engineering circles for the design of the selfliquidating vehicular tunnel under the Mobile River, the Bankhead Tunnel. This was built in 1938-39 while he was a member of the firm of Wilmerding and Palmer. The first engineering feat of its kind in the Deep South, the Bankhead Tunnel reduced by 7½ miles the distance between Mobile and points to the North and East via U.S. 90. The success and the speed of construction of that tunnel brought Palmer the contract for the famous ten-mile causeway, trestle and tunnel across Tampa Bay in Florida.

In addition to engineering, Palmer has been a writer. A lieutenant in the U.S. Navy from 1917 to 1922, he wrote magazine articles on naval subjects and a Liberty serial, "Raider," which appeared in book form in England and Germany as "Mad Days on the Devil Ship Emden." Palmer's writings about ships included a pictorial history of a navy in its ascendency, "Men and Ships of Steel."