Scope and Contents

A letter dated August 4, 1971 from the Executive Director, American Society of Civil Engineers, New York, NY, to Julian Hinds stated: "This is addressed to you as an Honorary Member of the Society at the request of the ASCE Committee on the History and Heritage of American Civil Engineering to bring attention to the possibility that you may wish to place papers of historical significance to the civil engineering profession in the Biographical Archives of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. There such material would become available to scholars for historical research. It is hoped that these archives would grow through a systematic and continuing program of gathering such papers from files of contemporary leaders of the civil engineering profession."

The collection consists of correspondence with the curator and members of the group of consultants for various dam projects, reports by various municipalities, reports by consulting firms, copies of papers published by the American Society of Civil Engineers, technical magazine articles, and Federal Government publications.

Since the investigation of the location for dams, the analysis of the feasibility of the project, and the final construction of dams was the main thrust of the professional work of Julian Hinds, his alphabetical listing of dams that he had some activity with forms the basis for referencing most of the collection. There was a fire that destroyed some of the material he had collected over the years, and that may account for the fact that some listed dams have no recorded reports etc.. The collection contains, however, a 124 page summary by Julian Hinds entitled "A Descriptive Listing Of The Writer's Dams" that does briefly refer to all dams in Series 2.

In addition to the reports on dams, the collection included publications on the subjects of aqueducts, linings for canals, steel and concrete pipe, research and design, international meetings, and books/pamphlets on the dams in California and Washington.

Biographical / Historical

Julian Hines (1881 - 1975) was born at Warranton, Alabama, grew up on a farm in Bullard, Texas, and without a High School Diploma entered the University of Texas, Austin, Texas, the fall of 1904 and was graduated with a B.S. Engineering Degree in 1908. After graduation he was an instructor at the Univ. of Texas for one year then went with private industry designing precast concrete railway bridges. That design work lead to engineering concrete irrigation works with the Bureau of Reclamation in Sunnyside, Washington, and then later at various other locations involving the construction of dams. He resigned from the Bureau in 1926 to work in Mexico on dams and irrigation systems. The Calles Dam was notable among early "trail load" arches. In 1929 he became Assistant General Manager and Chief Engineer for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. In that capacity he assumed charge of planning and design work on the Colorado River Aqueduct, a $40 million dollar project. He retired in 1951 as General Manager and Chief Engineer.

Post retirement (1951 - 1971) consulting with the Bechtel Corporation, Department of the Army (U.S.E.D.), the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and the World Bank involved many of the dams constructed on the Columbia and Colorado Rivers, and in the States of Montana, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and south of the border, Mexico. It is estimated that he was employed on 150 dam projects.

During his engineering career he wrote many technical articles and was a co-author of "Engineering for Dams" by Creager, Hinds, and Justin and contributed to references on hydraulics and dams. Among honors received was the "Distinguished Aluminus" citation given by the University of California in 1957; Member of Tau Beta Pi (an Engineering Honor Society); member of Sigma Xi; Honorary Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers; and Honorary L.L.D., University of California, 1957.