Frederick Pelham, born on November 7, 1864, attended school in Detroit and in 1887 became the first African American to receive an engineering degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He was hired as a civil engineer for the Michigan Central Railroad Company and became known for the design and construction of 20 railroad bridges. After Martha Warner was killed crossing the train tracks in 1887 and Dexter residents petitioned the railroad to make the road crossing safer, Pelham was assigned the work. In 1890, he designed the skew stone arch bridge over the road as well as the nearby stone arch bridge over Mill Creek. He died of acute pneumonia on February 6, 1895, at the age of 30.