death_date death_place birth_place citizenship image_size birth_date known_for image article_title name alma_mater
9 may 1938 cleveland , ohio farmington , michigan united states 175 october 20 , 1865 football player/engineer ernest sprague.jpg ernest sprague
 ernest sprague university of michigan
ernest sprague

ernest marshall sprague -lrb- october 20 , 1865 -- may 10 , 1938 -rrb- was an american football player , public official , and engineer .
he was born in 1865 on a farm at farmington , michigan .
he was the son of lorenzo sprague and laura g. -lrb- meade -rrb- sprague .
he enrolled at the university of michigan where he played college football as a rusher for the 1886 michigan wolverines football team and as a left guard for the 1887 team .
after graduating from michigan in 1888 , sprague was an engineer with the chicago & northwestern railway .
he remained in that position until 1895 .
he next worked for the milwaukee , lake shore & western railroad as a general inspector from approximately 1895 to 1897 .
his next position was with the detroit bridge & iron works .
he moved to denver , colorado , as a representative of the gillett herzog manufacturing company in 1898 .
in 1900 , he became employed with the american bridge company in denver from 1900 to 1903 .
in 1903 , he moved to cleveland , ohio where he continued to work for the american bridge company as a contracting engineer .
as of 1915 , he was the construction manager of the american bridge co. in cleveland , ohio .
he moved to east cleveland , ohio in 1905 and was a member of that city 's city council and a city commissioner for several years .
he served on east cleveland 's city commission from 1918 to 1934 .
he married maude l. sill in colorado in 1902 .
they had two children , robert and jean .
at the time of the 1920 and 1930 u.s. censuses , he lived in east cleveland , ohio , with his wife maude .
sprague later worked for 18 years as a construction manager for bethlehem steel .
he died in cleveland at age 73 in 1938 .
