BROWN, WENDELL PHILLIPS (27 Nov. 1866-31 Jan. 1951) was especially noted as a designer and builder of bridges during an engineering career of half a century. He was born in Hopkinton, R.I., the son of George and Martha Brumley Brown. From Phillips Andover Academy he went to Yale, where he received his engineering degree in 1890. Brown immediately proceeded to Cleveland to join the engineering staff of the KING IRON BRIDGE & MANUFACTURING CO. He married the former Hattie Sanger of Connecticut in 1893. In 1912 he joined WILBUR J. WATSON & Associates as vice-president and chief civil engineer. He left Watson in 1922 to form his own company, the Wendell P. Brown Co., serving as president and chief engineer until his retirement in 1940. Among the bridges designed by Brown were the Mahoning River viaduct in Niles, O., and the Fulton Rd. Bridge in Cleveland (1932). During WORLD WAR I he had designed and built factories for the manufacture of trucks by the WHITE MOTOR CORP. He served on a citizens committee to determine the location and estimated cost of the Lorain-Carnegie (see HOPE MEMORIAL) Bridge. His last major project was the design and construction in 1938 of the Upper West Third Street Bridge in the FLATS, Cleveland's first roller bearing, vertical lift bridge. Brown was a past president of the CLEVELAND ENGINEERING SOCIETY and a member of the New England Society of Cleveland (see PATRIOTIC SOCIETIES). He died in Grosse Pointe Park, Mich. and was buried at LAKE VIEW CEMETERY. His wife having died in 1939, he was survived by a son, M. Sanger, and 2 daughters, Marjorie Blair and Mary Carter.
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