Innovative engineering

A. Baldwin Wood, center, an 1899 Tulane engineering graduate, is pictured at the 1915 dedication of Station No. 1, which used his revolutionary new screw pump system. Wood invented the pump in the early 1900s, when he was fresh out of Tulane and employed by the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board. The pumps, more efficient than the centrifugal pumps they replaced, remain in use today, moving rainwater from the streets of New Orleans to Lake Pontchartrain.