Clifford Milburn Holland was born on March 13, 1883 in Somerset, Massachussets, United States. He was the only son of Edward John and Lydia Francis (Hood) Holland, and descendant of Francis LeBaron of Plymouth and Roger Williams of Providence.
Holland attended the public schools of Somerset and of St. Joseph, Michigan, the high school of Fall River, Massachussets, and the Cambridge (Massachussets) Latin School, from which he was graduated in 1902. He entered Harvard University the same year. He was obliged to earn part of his college expenses, which he did by teaching evening school, waiting on tables in the college dining hall, reading gas meters, and working during the summer months, but he was able to graduate as Bachelor of Arts in 1905 and Bachelor of Science in civil engineering in 1906. During his senior year at Harvard he passed the New York state civil service examination and upon graduation was appointed assistant engineer with the Rapid Transit Commission of New York.
In June 1906 Holland made his first connection with the field of engineering when he was assigned by the commission to the division constructing the old Battery Tunnel. In this work he spent two and a half years checking contract extras and incidentally he acquired a complete knowledge of the details of tunnel construction. In 1914 he became tunnel engineer for the Public Service Commission (the successor of the Rapid Transit Commission) in full charge of the design for and the construction of the four double-subway tunnels under the East River. The contract value of the work involved in the construction of these and other tunnels under his direction at the time amounted to $26, 000, 000.
In 1916 he was given the title of division engineer, in which position he continued to the end of his connection with the Public Service Commission in June 1919. At this time he was the outstanding leader in the field of subaqueous construction. Holland left the Public Service Commission to accept the position of chief engineer for the New York State and New Jersey Interstate Bridge and Tunnel commissions, to direct the design and construction of a vehicular tunnel under the Hudson River to connect New Jersey with New York. He assumed this office July 1, 1919, at a salary of $12, 000 a year. As a vehicular tunnel of this type had never before been attempted, many of the engineering problems involved were without precedent.
The plan finally recommended by Holland provided for a pair of cast-iron shield-driven tubes, with outside diameters of twenty-nine feet, six inches. The roadway of each tube was to be twenty feet wide, accommodating two lines of traffic in the same direction. Ventilation of the tunnel was to be secured by pumping some 3, 600, 000 cubic feet of air per minute through the passages above and below the roadway. The plan as recommended was strongly opposed and Holland was severely criticized by many competent engineers, but his plan was finally adopted over the protest of the opposition. Holland then gave all of his time and energy to the construction of the tunnels, until two days before the "holing through" was accomplished, when his work was ended by his death. Less than a month later, on November 12, 1924, the interstate tunnel commissions adopted a joint resolution officially designating the new tunnel as the Holland Tunnel, in honor of the man who had given five years of his life as chief engineer of its construction.
Holland went down to history as a notable civil engineer. He oversaw the construction of a number of subway and automobile tunnels in New York City, and was involved in a number of tunnel constructions, including the Hudson River Vehicular Tunnel project. For his involvement in the project the Holland Tunnel is named in his honor. It considered a notable engineering achievement because it solved the problem of ventilating a long vehicular tunnel.
In his honor the engineering scholarship of the Harvard Society was renamed the Clifford M. Holland Memorial Aid in Engineering.
Holland was active in many engineering societies. He was a member of the board of direction of the American Society of Civil Engineers, a member of the American Association of Engineers, and treasurer, secretary, vice-president, and president, successively, of the Harvard Engineering Society.
On November 5, 1908 Clifford Milburn Holland married Anna Coolidge Davenport.
