Travel To Engineeringsights.Org – Off The Beaten Path, And Offbeat

At the height of World War II, the U.S. was in desperate need for metal to build aircraft.  An aluminum plant in Tennessee was ready to produce, but it lacked the massive amounts of energy necessary to power the operation.  The solution?  An intense three-year marathon to construct the tallest concrete dam east of the Rockies.  The area was so remote that the government even built a town for the 5000 workers who labored in three shifts, 24 hours a day to complete the project in record time.

The Fontana Dam in Robbinsville, North Carolina, is just one of the newest additions to the Sightseers Guide to Engineering at www.engineeringsights.org, created by the National Engineers Week Foundation.  Nearly 300 attractions across the country are listed on the site, which tells the story of American engineering ingenuity through intriguing and often offbeat tourist sights.

Other recent additions include:

• International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., which features such engineering oddities as a solar-powered listening device disguised as a tree stump;
• World Museum of Mining, located at the abandoned Orphan Girl Mine in Butte, Montana, with tools and technology developed by mining engineers since the 1860s.
• Highland Park Dentzel Carousel, a massive 1896 carousel in Meridian, Mississippi, the largest of its kind in the world; and
• Missouri’s Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, featuring more than 70 historic train locomotives including the Union Pacific’s “Big Boy,” which could pull a 5 ½-mile-long train.

Summer vacations will be educational and memorable this year by visiting one of the hundreds of engineering marvels featured at www.engineeringsights.org.

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Engineers Week, a formal coalition of more than 75 engineering, professional, and technical societies and more than 50 corporations and government agencies, was founded in 1951 by the National Society of Professional Engineers.  The program is dedicated to ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers among young students and by promoting pre-college literacy in math and science.  Engineers Week also raises public understanding and appreciation of engineers' contributions to society.  Co-chairs for Engineers Week 2007, February 18-24, are the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) and Tyco Electronics Corporation.  Visit www.eweek.org for complete information on Engineers Week programs.

National Engineers Week Foundation
1420 King Street   Alexandria, VA 22314
tel. 703.684.2852   email: eweek@nspe.org