June 14, 2005

Stanley Hydraulics Laboratory Named National Historic Landmark

The C. Maxwell Stanley Hydraulics Laboratory has been named a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). The ASCE award -- the 196th presented nationally and the second given in Iowa -- is presented to unique landmarks that represent a significant facet of civil engineering history and that have contributed to the development of the nation. Constructed in 1919, the facility is the oldest university-based hydraulics laboratory in the U.S. that continuously has focused on research and education in hydraulic engineering.

The laboratory, located at the University of Iowa campus, houses IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering, one of the world’s premier and oldest fluids research and engineering laboratories. The facility is named for C. Maxwell Stanley, a UI and IIHR graduate, and founder of Stanley Consultants.

IIHR research activities have a national and international impact. Its hydraulic modeling efforts in the ‘30s were instrumental in planning the current nine-foot navigation channel of the Upper Mississippi River, with its locks and dams. Today’s combination of applied and theoretical research nurtures a great diversity of projects, ranging from laboratory, field and numerical studies of specific hydraulic structures to multimillion-dollar investigations aimed at river restoration; basin-scale hydrology and atmospheric sciences; and fundamental fluid mechanics.

Richard Stanley, son of Max and Betty Stanley, Chair of Stanley Consultants, and also a UI College of Engineering graduate, expressed great appreciation for the award. "For many decades, this hydraulics laboratory has been a widely recognized symbol of the creative and precedent-setting work of IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering. ASCE’s designation of it as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark is most fitting."