Resident of Florida.

When the history of Baltimore and her public men shall have been written, its pages will bear no name, nor the record of any career more worthy of honorable mention than that of the late Charles H. Latrobe.

It has been said that "biography is the home aspect of history" and it is therefore within the province of true history to perpetuate a remembrance of those men whose lives have been of marked usefulness and honor to the State and Nation, and the life of this eminent engineer whose works now stand and will continue for ages to bear witness to his genius and ability is justly entitled to a prominent and permanent place in the story of those who have helped to add to the greatness and the beauty of this city. The constructive nature of the work of an engineer in connection with the building and improvement of a city gives opportunity for the exercise of talents which, while providing for man's fundamental necessities, can clothe them with beauty, and such work touches in every highway the intimate daily life of the multitude.

Blessed with such talents, Charles H. Latrobe, a man of modest and retiring personal nature, but with the highest ideals of duty and usefulness served his native city faithfully and well. His active career embraced the wonderful last half of the nineteenth century, which has no parallel in history for vastness of growth in wealth and knowledge. Such a period of expansion and development is the engineer's greatest opportunity if he is artist enough and man enough to grasp the weapons ready to his hand. It is the greatest possible tribute to Mr. Latrobe to say that he so adapted himself to these conditions that he was able to direct high expenditures of money to useful and worthy artistic aims, with the result that the great works produced from his plans and under his guidance, stand not only as monuments to his skill and good taste, but as silent teachers of the dignity and importance of the engineer's calling.

Charles Hazlehurst Latrobe, son of Benjamin H. Latrobe, was born in Baltimore, December 25, 1833. He was educated at St. Mary's College, in this city, and took up the study of engineering in his father's office. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was at work in Florida, where he had gone some years previously. He gave up his engineering work and joined the forces being raised in Florida to aid the Southern Confederacy, and rose to the rank of lieutenant of the Engineers' Corps.
At the close of the war Mr. Latrobe returned to Baltimore and resumed the work of his profession. Although at that time scarcely thirty years of age, he almost immediately demonstrated that peculiar genius and skill which had characterized his eminent grandfather, his efforts, however, being directed along the line of heavy construction work rather than in the field of artistic building. Much of his work in this city and the surrounding country has been the subject of favorable comment by the most eminent engineers in the world.

During the administration of his cousin, General Ferdinand C. Latrobe, as mayor of Baltimore, Charles H. Latrobe was engineer of the Jones Falls Commission, and it was under his direction that the retaining walls along the Falls were built, an undertaking calling for the expenditure of between three and four million dollars. In connection with the work along Jones Falls he designed the terraced gardens along Mount Royal avenue at St. Paul street; the great iron bridges which carry St. Paul street, Calvert street and Guilford avenue over the Jones Falls valley, and the smaller bridges at Biddle street, Chase street, Gay street, Lombard street and Water street were all constructed under his direction, as also was the drawbridge at Block street.

A great feat of engineering and one which created much comment in the engineering world was his construction of the famous Agna de Verrngas bridge, which was constructed in this country from his designs, together with a number of other iron bridges, and sent to Peru. This bridge was 575 feet long and 263 feet high, being at the time of its erection the highest bridge in the world. The Arequipa viaduct is also his work. For many years he was engineer and general superintendent of public parks of Baltimore, a position which he held until a short time before his death, and in which he rendered inestimable service to the city in the beautification of its many parks. For some time before his death he was consulting engineer of the Coal & Iron Railway, a branch of the West Virginia Railway.

This plain statement of the facts connected with the life of Mr. Latrobe gives a very inadequate idea of the rare ability which was his, for he showed in his calling what might be called absolute mastery of the highest degree of skill and science which at that time had been attained in the world of civil and mechanical engineering. To those who knew him or were brought under the influence of his personality, the man himself was as interesting as his work was wonderful. Like most men of large affairs, he possessed that mysterious quality known as personal magnetism, which had much to do with gaining him such loyal friends and making the execution of his many enterprises possible. Among his strongest points were his executive ability, his power to see through intricate affairs, and his fertility and practicality of resource. He was quick to grasp large problems, size up a situation, and map out his course. His combination of physical and mental energies was exceptional, and he was so happily poised that he could turn readily and rapidly from the exercise of one talent to another without any sense of confusion. A man of fine personal appearance, retiring and composed in manner, shrewd, kindly and judicious in speech, he was the soul of honor in all business transactions and distinguished throughout his life by an unswerving loyalty to principle. He died on September 19, 1902.

While in Florida Mr. Latrobe married Letitia Gamble, widow of Mr. Halliday, of that State, and daughter of Colonel Robert Gamble, a wealthy and influential planter. They had a son Gamble, a sketch of whom follows. His second wife was a daughter of Dr. Robinson, a distinguished physician of Baltimore, and his third wife, who survives him, was Mrs. Isaac McKira before her marriage to Mr. Latrobe.
With regard to the position occupied by Charles H. Latrobe in the engineering world, there is no room for doubt. He desired success and rejoiced in the benefits and opportunities which it brought, but was too broadminded a man to rate it above its true value, and in all of his undertakings he found that enjoyment which comes in mastering a situation—the joy of doing what he undertook. Probably the greatest compliment that can be paid him is that he made himself an honor to his nation as well as a credit to the community in which he lived. His busy life was full of achievements; he needs no eulogy for the record of his career tells its own story.
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Charles Hazlehurst Latrobe, civil engineer, born in Baltimore, 25 December, 1833, was educated at the College of St. Mary in that city. He entered the service of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad company, and was also in the Confederate service. After the civil war he returned to Baltimore and adopted bridge-building as his specialty. His most remarkable works of this description, however, were in Peru, about a dozen in all; among them the Arequipa viaduct, which was 1,300 feet long and 65 feet high, and the Agua de Verrugas bridge, 575 feet long and 263 feet high. This structure was built across one of the deepest gorges in the Andes, and was, when erected, the loftiest structure of its kind in the world. It was framed in the United States, taken apart, and shipped to Peru, where it was erected in ninety days. Latrobe wrote an exhaustive report to the Baltimore authorities upon sewerage, which was reprinted and largely circulated.1556
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After his schooling Charles gained employment with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

Following his service as an engineer in the Confederate Army, Charles returned to Baltimore and entered the Baltimore Bridge Company, a concern in which his father was also engaged. In 1875 he became engineer of the Jones Falls Commission, contributing iron bridges and retaining walls to the project. Later he became involved in Baltimore's city parks, including Druid Hill Park and Patterson Park, where his distinctive "umbrella houses" would lead to the Patterson Park Observatory design of 1891.

Latrobe was also consulting architect for McKim, Mead & White’s Lovely Lane Church in Baltimore and is credited by James D. Dilts with designing "a system of timber and iron trusses to support the 130-ton tile roof and the Delorme-type wooden and plaster dome that covers the church auditorium."1555
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U.S. Civil War Soldiers records C. H. LaTrobe

Side: Confederate
Regiment Name: General and Staff Officers, Corps, Division and Brigade Staffs, Non-com. Staffs and Bands, Enlisted Men, Staff Departments, C.S.A.
Rank In/Rank Out: First Lieutenant
Film Number: M818 roll 141094
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Charles was six feet tall.1600