Mechanical engineering Landmark information including nomination criteria, guidelines, FAQ’s and forms.

US Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville, Ala.: largest rocket engines built at the time of the first US missions to the moon

Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.: unique cooling system for the testing of aerospace engines

Sloss Furnace Museum, Birmingham, Ala.: last US pit-cast jib crane to operate in the casting of iron pipe

US Dept. of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Auburn, Ala.: world's first full-size laboratory for tillage tools and traction equipment in all types of soils

Fairbanks, Alaska: one of the last mammoth gold dredges in the United States accessible to the public

Buenos Aires, Argentina: First ballpoint pens, utilized the concept of a quick-drying ink whose flow is controlled by gravity and a metal ball housed in a socket.

Childs-Irving Hydroelectric Project is an early 20th-century hydroelectric plant incorporating innovative technologies in Phoenix, AZ.

Magma Copper Co., Superior, Arizona: first air-conditioned mine in North America

Power House Museum (Sydney Technological Museum), Sydney, Australia: oldest surviving operable rotative steam engine by Boulton and Watt

Technical Museum, Vienna, Austria: direct predecessor of the modern automobile

Fresno District Fairgrounds, Fresno, Calif.: 19th-century example of the scraper whose design served as the basis for most giant earth-movers

Gillespie Fields Airport, El Cajon, Calif.: a first launch vehicle for the US space program

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasedena, Calif.: the two most intelligent machines ever built by NASA space program

Hiller Aircraft Museum, San Carlos, Calif.: the first heavier-than-air human-carrying aircraft to achieve controlled piloted flight

Carson, California: One of two surviving square-base linotypes

IBM Building 12, San Jose, Calif.: world's first computer storage device with random access to large volumes of data

Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Sonoma Cty, Geysersville, Calif.: first commercial geothermal electricity-generating station in North America

Folsom Lake State Recreation Area, Folsom, Calif.: one of the first successful uses of hydroelectric power in the world, including the first successful long-distance transmission of power

FMC Corporate Technology Center, Santa Clara, Calif.: world's first continuous-stream automation of the cooking and cooling system for canned food

Sutter Creek, Calif.: one of the earliest US water-powered foundry-machine shops, including Knight impulse turbines

Iron Man Museum, Sunnyvale, Calif.: early 20th-century ironworks demonstrating the adaptability required for industrial survival

North Star Mining Museum, Grass Valley, Calif.: collection on the origins of the Pelton turbine and its principle of the "splitter" bucket

Chevron of Standard Oil, Newhall, Calif.: a replica of the first successful commercial oil refinery in the US West

Cargill Salt Company, Newark, Calif.: one of the US's oldest surviving examples of the wind-driven Archimedes screw-pump

Cable Car Barn and Powerhouse Museum, San Francisco, Calif.: one of the most complicated cable-car systems to run from a single station

Roaring Camp & Big Trees, Felton, Calif.: early examples of small slow-speed 19-century geared locomotives

BART, San Francisco: most advanced automated urban rail transit system incorporating many innovations, marking a new generation of rail travel

California State Railroad Museum, Sacramento, Calif.: example of the final phase of US steam locomotive development in size and power

Anaheim, Calif.: first commercial Wenner-Gren monorail system

Vallecitos Nuclear Center, Pleasanton, Calif.: world's first privately owned and operated nuclear power plant to deliver significant quantities of electricity to a public utility grid

Moffett Field, Calif.: R&D facility for the testing of supersonic aircraft and spacecraft

Pasadena, Calif.: unique telescope mirror support and use of mercury flotation to reduce friction

Stanford University, Menlo Park, Calif.: unique electromechanical devices and systems in the longest accelerator in the world

Holt Memorial Hall, Haggin Museum, Stockton, Calif.: earliest track-type gasoline-powered tractor, influencing designs worldwide

Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, Calif.: one of only two operating survivors of the US emergency-cargo fleet known as Liberty Ships

Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: world's highest operating hydraulic lift lock, operating on the balance principle

Port of Nanjing, Nanjing, China: first high-speed, dockside container-handling crane

Cog Rail Depot, Colorado Springs, Colo.: highest railway in the US and highest rack railway in the world

AAR Transportation Technical Center, Pueblo, Colo.: first and only railroad dynamometer to test track wheels using vertical and lateral loads as well as thermal braking at the wheel rim

Merrill Engineering Laboratories and Merril Axle and Wheel Service (shop), Englewood and Lakewood, Colo.: innovative method of wheel balancing (on the vehicle) adopted worldwide

New England Air Museum, Bradley Intl. Airport, Windsor Locks, Conn.: early example of propeller innovations, including variable-pitch control and feathering capability

Mark Twain House, Hartford, Conn.: first US typography machine to set, justify, and distribute foundry type from a common case using one operator

Pitney-Bowes Inc., Stamford, Conn.: early model of world's first commercial postage meter

Connecticut Light & Power, Rocky River Station, Hartford, Conn.: early example of the pumped-storage principle, at a power plant

Old Mystic, Conn.: a rare survivor of a once-commonplace seasonal rural industry

Stanadyne Auto Corp., Diesel Systems Division, Windsor, Conn.: early developmental models of distributor-type injection pump for controlling engine speed

Cos Cob, Conn.: pioneering venture in mainline railroad electrification

Jacobs Manufacturing Company, Bloomfield, Conn.: first practical mechanism for braking large trucks with engine compression as they descend long, steep grades at controlled speeds

Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware: largest U.S. maker of explosive black powder, a once-important and now-obsolete 19th-century technology

Rolls-Royce, Bristol, England: earliest surviving example of the prototype engine for vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) jets, namely Harriers and AV-8Bs; with IMechE

Kew Bridge Steam Museum, Brentford, Middlesex, England: five notable 19th-century Cornish beam engines for municipal water supply

Friends of Dartmouth Museum Association, Devon, England: direct descendant of Thomas Newcomen's first atmospheric steam engine

Tyne and Wear Museum, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England: the world's first turbine-driven ship

Great Western Dock, Avon, Bristol, England: The world's first iron-hulled, screw-propelled ship to cross any ocean, leading to Britain's world leadership in maritime commerce

Kennedy Space Center, Fla.: largest rocket engines built at the time of the first US missions to the moon

Astronaut Hall of Fame, Titusville, Fla.: Apollo command module incorporating many innovations to allow safe transport of humans to moon and back

Pratt and Whitney, West Palm Beach, Fla.: first rocket engine to use high-energy liquid hydrogen as fuel

FMC Corporation, Citrus Machinery Divison, Lakeland, Fla.: early examples of machines that automated extraction of juices from fruit

National Park Service, Collier-Seminole State Park, near Naples, Fla.: last remaining dredge in the United States with unique propulsion system, designed for a wetlands environment

Useppa Island Historical Society, Fla.: example of early high-compression, cold-start, full-diesel engines developed for isolated, rural US areas before widespread electrification was available

City of Jacksonville Water Division, Jacksonville, Fla.: early 20th-century water pump driven by a Corliss steam engine

Prime Osborn Convention Center, Jacksonville, Fla.: early example of USRA passsenger locomotives representing the first US standardization program

Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.: test facility with unequalled capacity to simulate a wide range of climatic conditions from arctic cold to jungle moisture for full-scale equipment testing

University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla.: pioneering developments in solar-energy applications, with global accomplishments in training and innovation

Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center, Cape Canaveral, Fla.: two of the largest ground vehicles ever built, including automatic load-leveling systems

Museum of Man and Industry, Le Creusot, France: most powerful steam hammer in the world for many years

Paris, France. Most accurate to date drop-test device and wind tunnel to measure drag on falling objects of various shapes

Atlanta, Ga.: leader in transforming mechanical engineering education from a shop-based, vocational program to a professional one built on rigorous academic and analytical methods

Stirling Water-tube Boilers built in 1906 is the oldest existing steam generator in the US cotton mill and was made a ASME landmark in 1987.

Randall Brothers Inc., Atlanta, Ga.: example of a late 19th-century Corliss-type steam engine

Sankt Andreasberg, Niedarachsen, Germany: hoists representative of bygone practice, including a waterwheel for ore hoisting and a mechanism to hoist workers

Dole Packaged Foods Company, Honolulu, Hawaii: example of automated peeling and slicing machine that led to commercial pineapple production

Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Arco, Idaho: world's first nuclear power plant to demonstrate the breeder concept

Graue Mill and Museum, Oak Brook, Ill.: one of a few survivors of typical US mill machinery with wood as the principal material

Museum of Science & Industy, Chicago, Ill.: first US diesel-powered, stainless-steel streamlined train

CB&Q Aurora Shops, Aurora, Ill.: innovative railroad yard machine shop for first railroad linking Chicago and the Mississippi River

Fermi National Laboratories, Batavia, Ill.: largest cryogenic system ever built, providing benchmark for superconducting magnet designs

La Porte, Ind.: vital role in the mechanization of agricultural machines, including the Oil Pull tractor (1908) - with ASAgE

Hammond, Ind.: world's largest electric-power generator for nearly 25 years, achieving many design firsts

General Electric, Indianapolis, Ind.: first steam turbine electric-generation station

Floyd County Historical Museum, Charles City, Iowa: earliest known internal-combustion-engined agricultural tractor in the United States

Tokyo, Japan: the world's first high-speed railway, which operated at about 210 km/h (130-160 mph)

West Mineral, Kansas: one of the world's largest power shovels

New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board, New Orleans: the most advanced low-lift drainage pump in use in the early 20th century, later used worldwide

Regional Transit Authority of New Orleans, La.: the oldest surviving interurban-urban passenger rail transport system in the United States

Patten Lumberman's Museum, Patten, Maine: first practical example of crawler-tread vehicles now used in agricultural, construction, and military equipment

Crown Cork & Seal Co., Baltimore: one of two surviving automated machines that founded the bottling industry for beverages

Furnace Town Foundation, Snow Hill, Md.: earliest surviving hot-blast furnace in the United States

Old Lock Pump House, Chesapeake City, Md.: 19th-century steam pumps at the (former) summit of the ship canal

B & O Railroad Museum, Baltimore, Md.: first USRA freight locomotive built, representing the first standardized family of US locomotives

Mt. Clare Station, Baltimore, Md.: first US railroad in public service

David Taylor Model Basin (1939), US Navy, Bethesda: among the world's largest test facilities for the development of ship design.

US Army Test & Evaluation Command, Aberdeen, Md.: world's first large-scale, fully instrumented ballistic range for producing data on aerodynamics

Weymouth, Mass.: power-generation station with one of the world's only high-pressure topping turbines, which set new records in the late 1920s.

Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Mass.: the first US armory noted for machinery for mass production of small arms, including the Blanchard lathe

Worcester, Mass.: one of the world's largest fabrication tools, influencing aviation and aerospace technology

Lowell National Historical Park, Lowell, Mass.: early major US water-power system and the first Francis inward-flow water turbine placed in service and oldest in existence

Holyoke Heritage State Park, Holyoke, Mass.: major 19th-century US industrial center for paper and textile industries, known for its machine shops and water-power system

National Park Service, Saugus National Historic Site, Saugus: replica of the first commercial ironworks in North America

Chestnut Hill Pumping Station, Boston, Mass.: unusual triple-expansion, three-crank "rocker" engine, driving high-capacity, high-speed pumps

Holden, Mass.: early 20th-century test facility for current meters, aircraft propellers, ships' logs, pitot tubes, and mine-sweeping paravanes

Nantucket History Association, Nantucket, Mass.: oldest operating smock-type windmill in the United States.

Kalamazoo, Michigan: First functional wing-folding mechanism, enabling aircraft to take up less space on ships.

Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Mich.: first practical US helicopter, pioneering the single-main-rotor concept

Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Mich.: sole surviving engine-generator set marking the beginning of large-scale electric power generation in the United States

Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Mich.: one of six dynamos from Edison's Pearl Street Station, the prototype for US central-station power generation.

Saulte Sainte Marie, Mich.: early, extremely large-scale, low-head hydropower plant using many small turbines

Detroit Edison Company, Detroit, Mich.: early example of typical US district heating plant

Brighton, Mich.: private collection that represents many of the advances in mechanical refrigeration for US residential and commerial use from the late 19th century up to 1960

Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Mich.: earliest example of the machine that automated light-bulb manufacture

Scottville, Mich.: early example of the successful conversion of steam engines to internal-combustion engines

Quincy Mine Hoist Association, Inc., Hancock, Mich.: world's largest mine hoist

Trenton, Michigan: vessel that introduced the basic oxygen process to the United States

Menominee Range Historical Foundation, Iron Mountain, Mich.: late 19th-century steeple compound-condensing engine and one of the largest at the time

Ford Motor Company introduced its new Model T on October 1, 1908, even an inveterate optimist like Henry Ford (1863-1947) could not predict the vast changes that his new vehicle would produce.

Lake Michigan Ferry Service, Ludington, Mich.: one of the last operating American steam lake boats with reciprocating engines and coal-fired boilers