author
Henry Earle Riggs
b. 1865
Known for writing about public utility valuation and depreciation, this American civil engineer turned highly technical subjects into books and papers that shaped professional discussion in the early 20th century. He also left behind a strong paper trail through his engineering work, lectures, and family-history writing.
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About the author
Born in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1865, Henry Earle Riggs built a career as a civil engineer and later became especially associated with the valuation of public utilities. His surviving publications include Depreciation of Public Utility Properties and Its Relation to Fair Value and Changes in the Level of Prices and The Troublesome Problem of Depreciation, showing his focus on the financial and regulatory side of engineering.
Archival records at the University of Michigan describe his papers as covering public-utility valuation, civil engineering, and public works, including lectures, articles, testimony, and correspondence from the early 1900s through the 1940s. He also wrote family-history volumes later in life, suggesting a wide range of interests beyond technical practice.
Riggs died in 1949. Today he is remembered less as a literary figure than as a specialist author whose work helped explain how engineers, utilities, and public agencies thought about value, depreciation, and infrastructure in a period of rapid growth.