Background
Henry Flad was born on July 30, 1824, in the Grand Duchy of Baden near the university town of Heidelberg, the son of Jacob Flad and Franziska Brunn.
Henry Flad was born on July 30, 1824, in the Grand Duchy of Baden near the university town of Heidelberg, the son of Jacob Flad and Franziska Brunn.
Less than a year after his birth his father died and his mother moved to Speyer in the Rhine Palatinate, where Flad received his early education.
He then took the polytechnic course in the University of Munich and graduated in 1846.
After spending two years in the engineering service of the Bavarian government, Flad took part in the Revolution of 1848 as captain of a company of army engineers.
With the collapse of this movement, Flad was forced to flee his native land and sailed for the United States, landing in New York in the autumn of 1849. After serving for a short time as a draftsman in an architect’s office there, he secured a position as an engineer in the construction of the New York & Erie Railroad. For the succeeding eleven years he was engaged in railroad construction work both in the East and Middle West.
With the outbreak of the Civil War Flad enlisted in the Union army and served admirably in the "Engineer Regiment of the West, " maintaining railroad communication and building defensive works, and passing through all the grades from private to colonel.
After the war he returned to St. Louis and as assistant engineer to James P. Kirkwood, worked on plans for an improved water supply for St. Louis.
Three years later Flad was made a member of the reorganized board of water commissioners and served continuously for eight years during which time the city’s water-works were completed and put into service. Meanwhile he met James B. Eads and when the latter began the construction of the famous "Eads Bridge, " Flad joined him as assistant engineer. Some of the boldest features of this enterprise, such as the method of erecting masonry without false work, were due to Flad.
Following several years of consulting engineering practise, Flad was elected first president of the newly constituted Board of Public Improvements of St. Louis in 1877, which office he held continuously for nearly fourteen years. Through his characteristically determined efforts the city’s system of public works was taken out of politics and put on a firm engineering and financial basis, in which respect St. Louis became a model city.
In 1890 Flad resigned this office to accept an appointment as member of the Mississippi River Commission, a position which he retained until his death.
As an engineer, Flad was remarkable for his great fertility of invention. While a water commissioner, he secured patents for filters and water meters; while with Eads, he devised, among other things, a hydrostatic and hydraulic elevator, deep-sea sounding apparatus, pressure gages, and a pile driver; when in public service, he secured patents for methods of preserving timber and sprinkling streets. He was also interested in transportation, and received a number of patents on electro-magnetic and straight air-brakes, systems of rapid transit, and cable railways. Lastly, while on the Mississippi River Commission, he invented a recording velocimeter and a rheobathometer, and obtained a third patent for a device for indicating the velocity of running fluids.
Henry Flad died on June 20, 1898, at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he stopped on his way home from a meeting of the Mississippi River Commission to visit Mr. Godfrey Stengel, a lifelong friend who had come with him on the same ship to America forty nine years before.
Henry Flad was a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (president in 1886) ; founder of the Engineers’ Club of St. Louis (president, 1868 - 1880) ; and a member of the Loyal Legion.
Henry Flad was twice married: first, to Helen Reichard in Germany, in 1848; and second, to Caroline Reichard at Potosi, Missouri, on September 12, 1855 (or 1856).
Henry Flad had two daughters and a son.