Walter Gwynn - Engineer

Engineer

He resigned his army commission in February 1832. From 1833 to 1836, he worked as chief engineer in charge of the construction of the Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad. He was Superintendent and Chief Engineer of the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad in North Carolina from 1836 to 1840; also during this period, he conducted surveys for several other railroad and canal projects in Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia. From 1842 to 1846 he was president of the Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad, and in 1846, he became president of the James River and Kanawha Canal Company, a position which he held until 1853, when he moved from Richmond, Virginia, to Raleigh, North Carolina. In 1850, Gwynn was hired by the North Carolina Rail Road Company as Chief Engineer "Employed on the Surveys and Location of the North Carolina Rail Road, from the commencement of operations to the completion of the location." Gwynn supervised construction of the North Carolina Railroad until it was completed in early 1856. Between 1853 and 1855, he conducted surveys for the Atlantic & North Carolina Railroad and the Western North Carolina Railroad; and from 1848 to 1855 he was the chief engineer of the Wilmington & Manchester Railroad. He was also chief engineer of the Blue Ridge Rail Road Company in South Carolina in the 1850s.

Gwynn's concurrent positions with multiple railroads was considered controversial and was criticized at times, but his qualifications and accomplishments overshadowed such criticism. But by the late 1850s, he had established an international reputation as a railroad engineer and as a founder of the southeastern railroad network. A colleague said that Gwynn "made for himself a reputation among his fellow engineers that will last for all time." In 1857, he retired from railroad work and moved to South Carolina.