Bernard Moore Temple

Born near Fredericksburg, Virginia, Bernard Moore Temple became a noted railroad engineer. In 1862, he enlisted in the Virginia artillery in the Confederate Army, where he gained engineering experience in artillery and ordnance. After moving to Kansas in 1868 to work as a railway engineer, he spent the next four years building lines in Kansas and Nebraska for three railway companies while apprenticing under master railroad builders, including Octave Chanute. In 1872, he joined the Texas and Pacific Railroad and worked in Texas under Grenville M. Dodge. He moved to Galveston in 1875, married Ida May Shipman, and they reared two children. Hired by the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway as a surveyor, he became the de facto chief engineer in 1877 as the company rapidly extended track to Bell County on its route toward Santa Fe, New Mexico by 1880. The railroad then chose to build a northward branch to Fort Worth from a town named in his honor, where lots for the new settlement began selling in 1881. Temple left the company in 1884 but continued engineering projects in Texas. Later employed by Collis P. Huntington, he developed and built the Pecos High Bridge across the Pecos River. He then returned to Galveston, where he built jetties and served as city engineer from 1895 to 1897 and as water works superintendent from 1899 to 1901. After the storm of 1900, he restored the water system within three weeks. He died in 1901 and is remembered as a leading figure in railroad and engineering work throughout Texas.

Temple, Texas · United States