Ernest L. Ransome

Who was Ernest L. Ransome?

Ernest Leslie Ransome was an English-born engineer, architect, and early innovator in reinforced concrete building techniques. Ransome devised the most sophisticated concrete structures in the United States at the time.

Ernest was the son of Frederick Ransome, who had patented a process for producing artificial stone in 1844. Ernest was apprenticed to his father's factory in Ipswich. By the 1870s Ernest had moved to the USA and was the superintendent of the Pacific Stone Company in San Francisco. In 1884 after experimenting with reinforced concrete sidewalks, he patented a system of ferro-concrete with the iron rods twisted to improve the bond, then developed a patented Ransome system for practical reinforced concrete construction. In 1886 Ransome built two small underpass bridges in the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco which survive today, and which are the first reinforced concrete bridges in North America, and among the first three or four in the world.

After a long string of accomplishments Ransome continued to meet with skepticism and resistance.