John Augustus Roebling was a German-born American civil engineer. He designed and built wire rope suspension bridges, in particular the Brooklyn Bridge, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.
John Augustus Roebling, original name Johann August Röbling,a German-born American civil engineer, a pioneer in the design of suspension bridges. His best-known work is the Brooklyn Bridge of New York City, which was completed under the direction of his eldest son, and daughter-in-law in 1883.

After taking classes at the building academy in Berlin for two semesters, Roebling worked for the Prussian government for three years and at the age of 25 emigrated to the U.S. He settled with his elder brother near Pittsburg. In his first employment, during his surveying work, Roebling studied the state-owned Portage Railroad, where a combination of level tracks with inclines connected the two primary canal systems of the commonwealth across the Allegheny mountain ridges. He suggested the service life of the hemp ropes on the inclines might be improved if they were made of wrought iron wire. He developed his own method for stranding and weaving wire cables, which proved to be as durable as he had predicted. The demand for such cable soon became so great that he established a factory to manufacture it in Trenton, New Jersey. This was the beginning of an industrial complex that finally was capable of producing everything from wire cloth to enormous suspension bridge cables 36 inches (91 cm) in diameter. It remained a family-owned business until 1952, carried on by three generations of Roeblings.

The success of his business allowed him freedom to create many proposals for suspension bridges and aqueducts. He made dozens of designs and completed 12 structures in the period between 1844 and 1869, including suspension bridges in Pittsburgh and at Niagara Falls. His eldest son, Washington, joined him in his work in 1858, and together they built another suspension bridge in Pittsburgh and one across the Ohio River between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky, with a main span of 1,051 feet (320 metres). Roebling’s design for a bridge connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan with a span of 1,595 feet (486 metres) was accepted in 1867, and he was appointed chief engineer of the project.

Work on the bridge cost Roebling his life. He went to examine the site of the Brooklyn tower and stood on the moveable rack of a ferry slip to get a better view. A docking boat hit the rack, and his toes were crushed in the woodwork. Three weeks later he died of tetanus at the age of 63. His son and daughter-in-law Emily Warren Roebling continued his work on the Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883.