Thomas Paschall Roberts

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Thomas Paschall Roberts (April 21, 1843 – February 25, 1924) was a Civil War–era-era engineer and surveyor from Pennsylvania who became a leading river and railroad engineer. He was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and later moved with his family to Pittsburgh and back. He studied at Dickinson College and Pennsylvania State College, where he was active in student science groups and was sometimes called Colonel Roberts.

In 1863 he left college to work with his father on the Don Pedro Railroad in Brazil, a project they completed in 1865. Back in the United States, he helped improve the Ohio River and then spent many years surveying and building railroads across the country. He served as chief engineer for the Montana division of the Northern Pacific Railroad (1870), for the Pittsburgh Southern Railroad (1876–77), and for the Baltimore and Cumberland Valley Railroad (1881).

In 1884 he became chief engineer of the Monongahela Navigation Company, directing river improvements there until the government bought the company in 1897. After that, he worked as a U.S. assistant engineer and supervised Monongahela River work at a national level.

Roberts led several important surveys. In 1872 he headed a U.S. government expedition to survey the Missouri River for commercial use and to map a possible route around the Great Falls for a narrow-gauge railroad. During this work he named Black Eagle Falls and Rainbow Falls. He also surveyed the upper Monongahela River and the Allegheny River in later years.

In 1889 he advised on the proposed canal linking Lake Erie and the Ohio River near Pittsburgh and chaired a state committee to study its feasibility. He was active in scientific and engineering groups, helped found the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania, and held leadership roles in the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce.

Roberts married Juliet Emma Christy in 1870, and they had seven children (one died in childhood). He retired from active engineering work in 1922 and died in Pittsburgh on February 25, 1924, from chronic myocarditis.