The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1920-07-01
OBITUARY

l.. X. PITT died Tuesday evening at
| his home at SIG North Twelfth street.
| Mr.. PITT was born at Ingelheim, Ger
many, Feb. 10, 1851. He was gradual
ed from the Polytechnic school at
Karlsruhe at the age of % and went
into railroad civil engineering in Ger
many When still hardly past his ma
jority he won prize in an open COM
petition in city planning in one of the
larger cities of his native land in com
petition with eminent engineers. He
married in Germany in 1876 and he
and Mrs. PITT came to America and to
Manitowoc in 1881. He spent years in
| the service of the Chicago and North
western and Wisconsin Central rail-
ways and for about twenty years, but
not consecutively, was city engineer of
this city. He has not been well for
three years but was down to his Office
quite regularly up to about year ago.
He has been approaching the end rap
idly for a month, and for forty-eight
hours prior to his demise passed away
peacefully while in an unconscious con-
dition.
Mr.. PITT was the father of eight
children, seven of whom with his wife
survive, being Mrs. Henrietta Chloupek,
Green Bay; Mrs. j. Thiel, Belvidere,
! H.; Lillian, Arthur II. and Armin of
this city; Major Hugo PITT and Major
Otto PITY, both in the United States
army, the former attached to the coast
artillery service at Fort Hancock, New
Jersey, and the latter an officer of the
Eighteenth infantry at FL Paso.
The funeral will be held tomorrow
afternoon at 2 O'Clock from the family
home.
Only those well acquainted with Mr.
Pitts ability as an engineer, and able
to appreciate it, would acquit one of
the charge of gross exaggeraiion if his
real merit in his profession were set
| forth. 1t might give some hint to say
that one of the great railroad systems
of the country more than once with the
best engineering talent at its command
years ago put him in entire charge, un-
questioned, of an important project
costing over million dollars. In con
ference between the city and railroad
officials the Difference paid to any en-
gineering opinion of l.. X PITT was
i marked.
Few people in the city seemed to
appreciate the fact that for many years
| this city had the services of a really
| great engineer for but small fraction
of what his services were worth. 1t
was realized by some who knew of the
herculean laborS he performed in 1915
and 1916 in combining the city water
and electric stations and planning and
building the new plant in which he per-
| formed all the work in four or five dis
| tlnct branches of engineering and for
which work any city under any usual
circumstances would have paid many
thousands of dollars for consulting ex-
pert engineers.
Monuments to his ability, one might
fairly say his genius, abound. He had
some serious defect of temperament or
some mysterious, elusive, missing quail
| ity that dogged the path of his career
and kept him from the heights of his
| profession. 1t was not want of energy.
tile WIS II prUdigious worker.-fIe lived
a busy, useful life of which his children
may well be proud. No one would
want a better friend or companion than
he. He spoke German, English and
French huently and was familiar with
the scientific, classic literature of the
three languages.
A unique career has ended and
personality that will be long remem-
bcred has disappeared.
~