Three days later, his dreams were dampened by a full-blown hurricane that halted construction of the Trail until May 1, 1927. 15, 1926, just three years after Collier County was formed. Wilson no doubt had big dreams when he set out on his new job in Everglades City on Sept. When the Florida Road Department took over the county’s work, he was tapped to become part of the crew working on the Collier County section of a road called the Tamiami Trail. Wilson went to work as an instrument man for the Orange County Highway Engineers in 1926. Wilson gathered together a cooperative survey crew of men who would work for cash only (lessons learned during the land boom), demonstrating his leadership and management skills early in his life. He was ready and willing to implement the construction and surveying education he had obtained on various jobs working for his father, an Illinois highway commissioner.Īfter the bust in Orlando, jobs were few and far between, yet Mr. Wilson first came to Florida via Orlando during the short-lived “land boom” of 1925. Robert Wilson, aka “Plumb-Bob,” founded one of our city’s earliest and now most respected engineering firms.īorn in Fairmount, Ill., in 1899, Mr. Many plumb-bobs helped to build Naples, but one in particular was especially true and accurate. While the level was more accurate for true horizontal line (and more cost-effective to manufacture), it could not accurately transfer an exact point from one height to another. The plumb-bob was almost rendered obsolete when the level was invented during the Industrial Revolution. A tool whose only claim to fame is that it obeys the laws of gravity has played a mighty role throughout world history, beginning with the Egyptians, who created the earliest surveying instruments: the plumb-bob, the A-Level, T-Level and plumb square.
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