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Charles S. Johnson
1877 - 1941

An innovative engineer and equipment designer, Charles S. Johnson founded the C.S. Johnson Company in 1920. Some of his most significant equipment developments proved to be a series of patented, aggregate storage and batching systems for highway construction.

Johnson's most visible and noteworthy achievement was the engineering, design and layout of the storage, batching and mixing plant for the Hoover Dam project. This mammoth undertaking would yield nearly 4.5 million cubic yards of concrete for what became one of the seven wonders of the world. His design featured a multi-weigh hopper and scale system with a tilting mixer, which accelerated the speed of both batching and mixing operations. This plant turned out to be the first ever fully automated plant for producing mass concrete, and was especially unique for its placement within the narrow confines of the Black Canyon.

Charles Johnson's innovations at the Hoover Dam set the criteria for hydro-electric plants on an international scale, serving as guidelines for the U.S. Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation specifications.

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