Morrison Knudsen Profile

Morrison Knudsen Profile

"Our History". In Morrison Knudsen Foundation, [online]. Available at: http://mk-foundation.org/about-us/ [Accessed 18 Feb. 2020].

PT BUILDS

1912-1996, USA

Morrison Knudsen Plaza, Boise, Idaho, USA

1912

Harry Morrison

Morris Knudsen

1996

Morrison–Knudsen was a construction and civil engineering company. It was founded in 1912 by Harry Morrison and Morris Knudsen, based in Boise, Idaho. The partnership between the two founders began in 1905, although the first work that earned them recognition in the sector was the construction of the Three Mile Falls Diversion Dam, in southern Umatilla, Oregon, in 1914. During the first decades of activity the company's specialty was limited to irrigation canals, logging roads, and railways. However, between 1932 and 1935 they built what was the company's first major project, the Hoover Dam, on the border between the states of Arizona and Calorado. Adapted to the times, during the second world war, Morrison–Knudsen built airfields, storage depots, and bases, especially in the Pacific, on the east coast of the United States. It was after the war that the company expanded internationally, highlighting the Rimutaka Tunnel in New Zealand, Hamersley & Robe River and Mount Newman railways in Australia and the April 25 bridge in Portugal. National projects also continued to add up, namely the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Distant Early Warning Line system, Minuteman missile silos, and the NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The volume of work in the Railways sector led the company to create a separate rail division, MK Rail, in 1972. After Morrison–Knudsen's bankruptcy in 1996, due to financial difficulties, the company renamed itself MotivePower, Inc. Despite declaring bankruptcy, Morrison–Knudsen ended up surviving because of the purchase of the entire company done by Washington Group International in 1996.