Morrison–Knudsen (MK) was an American civil engineering and construction company, with headquarters in Boise, Idaho.
MK designed and constructed major infrastructure throughout the world and was one of the consortium of firms that built Hoover Dam, San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and many other large projects of American infrastructure.
Founders
MK's origins date to 1905, when Harry Morrison, Chairman and President (1885–1971) met Morris Knudsen (1862–1943) while working on the construction of the New York Canal (Boise Project) in southwestern Idaho. Morrison was a 20-year-old concrete superintendent for the Reclamation Service; Knudsen was a forty-something Nebraska farmer (and Danish immigrant) with a team of horses and
Their first venture together was in 1912, on a pump plant in nearby Grand View for $14,000; they lost money but gained experience. MK earned some revenue in 1914, when they constructed the Three Mile Falls Diversion Dam, south of Umatilla, Oregon. For several years, the firm built irrigation canals, logging roads, and railways; they incorporated in 1923, the year gross revenues topped $1 million. significant milestone with its joint venture in the construction of
World War II
During World War II, MK built airfields, storage depots, and bases throughout the Pacific, and built ships along the West Coast. Japanese forces captured 1,200 workers, including many MK employees, stationed on Midway and Wake Islands in late 1941. After the war, MK expanded into a variety of international
Post-war projects
MK won contracts for many domestic and foreign Cold War projects. It built the locks on the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Distant Early Warning Line system, Minuteman missile silos, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, and over 100 major dams. Morrison was featured on the cover of Time magazine on May 3, 1954, and the article claimed Morrison was "the man who has done more than anyone else to change the face of the earth."
In the late 1950s, MK constructed the railroad causeway that spanned across the Great Salt Lake in Utah. The Lucin Cutoff causeway allowed trains to operate at full operating speeds instead of the slower speeds required to safely travel over the deteriorating wooden trestle crossing parallel to it. The causeway is estimated to have used 65 million tons of rock and gravel.
In the 1950s it was involved in the construction of the Rimutaka Tunnel in New Zealand, the longest rail tunnel in the southern hemisphere. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, MK was involved in the construction of the Hamersley & Robe River and Mount Newman railways in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
From 1962 to 1972, MK managed a joint venture to serve the U.S. military as civilian contractors for infrastructure in the Vietnam War; in 1971, they constructed 384 of the infamous "tiger cage" cells of was called RMK-BRJ and included Raymond International, Brown & Root, and JA Jones Construction
MK was also involved in the construction of rail projects such as the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) extension (MK also built 80 C2 cars for BART in 1994) and the single track Apoera-Bakhuys Railway in Suriname (1976–1977).
Rail and transit
MK Rail
Morrison–Knudsen established a separate rail systems division in 1972. Initially, the company rebuilt locomotives, such as the four Delaware & Hudson ALCO PAs. It rebuilt four Southern Pacific GE U25Bs with a Sulzer V-12 prime mover. These locomotives, designated M-K TE70-4S, operated from 1978 to 1987. built locomotives, originally under its own name and later under subsidiary MK Rail from 1994 to 1996, such as the MK5000C and the F40PHM-2C. Its Australian operation, based in Whyalla, South Australia, rebuilt 17 CL and eight AL class locomotives for Australian National and six DE class locomotives for BHP in the 1990s.
Morrison–Knudsen spun-off MK Rail in 1993; it became a publicly traded company in 1994. After Morrison–Knudsen's bankruptcy in 1996 the company renamed itself MotivePower. The company merged with Westinghouse Air Brake Company in 1999 to form Wabtec. MotivePower is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Wabtec.