Major General William Sooy Smith was born in Tarlton on July 22, 1830. He attended Ohio University, supporting himself throughout his undergraduate years, and graduated in 1849. He then entered the United States Military Academy at West Point to pursue engineering and graduated sixth in the class of 1853. In 1857, he established the private engineering firm Parkinson & Smith and made the first surveys for the international bridge across the Niagara River near Niagara Falls. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the 13th Ohio Infantry and won a commission as colonel in June 1861. After early victories in western Virginia, he was promoted to brigadier general in April 1862 for gallant and meritorious service at the Battle of Shilo. After brilliant service in the Vicksburg campaign, he was promoted to major general and became chief of cavalry for the Department of Tennessee and later the Military Division of Mississippi, serving under General Ulysses S. Grant and General William T. Sherman. Following a controversial defeat by Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest at Okolona, Mississippi, he left military service and reestablished his engineering firm. He became an internationally known expert on bridges and foundations. In 1867, he sank the first pneumatic caisson in building the Waugoshanee lighthouse at the Straits of Mackinaw and built the first all-steel bridge over the Missouri River at Glasgow, Missouri. He received the American Centennial Exposition prize in 1876 for his bridge designs, retired to Medford, Oregon, and died there in 1916.