In the Deep South before the Civil War, Horace King reached beyond his status as a slave to become a highly successful engineer. By Dan T. ChaseThe Early 1800s found tens of thousands of Americans pushing westward, but everywhere their progress was impeded by rivers. Bridges were needed, and from the lat eighteenth century, engineers designed scores of wooden structures to span America's waterways. Among their ranks was Horace King, a wealthy Southern contractor and one of the most famous bridge builders, black or white, of the early nineteenth century.
