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Male, born 1886-02-23, died 1971-07-19
Associated with the firm network
Morrison-Knudsen Company, Incorporated
Concrete Superintendent, Bates and Rogers Construction Company, Chicago, IL, c. 1900-1912; Co-founder, Morrison-Knudsen Company, Incorporated, Boise, ID, 1912- . Harold Morrison (1886-1971) and Morris Knudsen (1862–1943) formed their construction partnership in Grand View, ID, doing difficult, labor-intensive infrastructure projects, such as dams, irrigation canals, logging roads and railway lines. The US Congress's National Reclamation Act of 1902 provided financial incentives to companies, like Morrison-Knudsen, that worked on large-scale dam and irrigation projects throughout the American West. Knudsen, a Danish immigrant, led the company until 1934, when he retired to a house in San Diego, CA. The firm formally incorporated in 1923 and re-incorporated during the Depression in 1932. Morrison-Knudsen became very active during the 1930s and 1940s, building bridges, government airfields, military facilities and shipbuilding docks. Morrison-Knudsen organized the Six Companies, Incorporated, consortium that built Boulder Dam, and was an important contractor for Grand Coullee Dam before the war and Saint Lawrence Seaway, Alcan Highway, Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building and San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Project after World War II. It also diversified to own a company producing railroad locomotives and cars. Morrison served as company president from 1934-1960, and remained chairman of the board until 1968. (See "Harry Morrison Dies at 86," Lewiston [ID] Morning Tribune, 07/20/1971, p, 1-2.,
Morrison was awarded Honorary Degrees from the University of Idaho, the College of Idaho, and the University of Portland, Portland, OR. The City of Seattle presented him with an "Economic Statesmanship Award." Morrison also made the cover of Time Magazine on 05/03/1954.
He completed two years of high school; his training came when the joined the Chicago construction company, Bates and Rogers c. 1900.
As a fourteen year old, he got a job as a summer waterboy for the Bates and Rogers Construction Company in Chicago, IL. He quit high school to join the company, and, in 1904, he traveled to ID to work as a concrete superintendent on the company's earthfill Minidoka Dam Project (completed in 1906) on the Snake River. Aside from travel for work, (Morrison-Knudsen did jobs all over the world while he was president), Morrison remained in ID for the remainder of his life. He died in Boise and was buried at the Morris Hill Cemetery there.
Morrison married twice.
He had a stepson, Ronald Shannon, and stepdaughter, Judith Wilkerson, from his second marriage.
PCAD id: 5627
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